Distribution and Habitat: Plains and hills of India

Botany: A deciduous dextrose woody climber with slender flexible and tough branches, the stem attaining 4.5 m height.

• Leaves: Alternate, pinnately compound with numerous deciduous leaflets. Leaflets thinly membranous, rounded at both ends, 10-20 in opposite pairs.
• Flowers: 1-1.25 cm long, pink, axillary, pedunculate raceme 5-10 cm long,  shorter than leaves. Flowers subsessile pale purple to yellowish.
• Pod:   Turgid, thinly pubescent, with a sharp deflexed beak.
• Seeds:  Glossy, ovoid, scarlet with a black spot round the hilum or black with a white spot or uniformly black or white

Properties: Cytotoxic, antifertility, abortifacient, antidermatic, antidermatic, anti-inflammatory, antirheumatic, aphrodisiac, diuretic, stomachic

Chemical constituents: Abrine, abralin and albumotoxin, cholanic acid, trigonelline and its gallic acid esters

Uses: 

• Roots and leaves used against cough, pharyngodynia, pectoralgia, inflammation, strangury.
• Leaves are chewed to relieve the pain due to ulcer in mouth.
• Seeds are used for skin diseases, wounds, alopecia, asthma, fever, tubercular glands, and hyperdipsia

Propagation: Seeds or cuttings of firm shoots.