A perennial, slender, laticiferous, twining or prostrate shrub with woody root-stock, numerous slender, terete stems, woody, aromatic roots, simple, opposite, elliptic-oblong to linear-lanceolate leaves, often variegated with white above and silvery white pubescent beneath, greenish purple flowers crowded in subsessile cymes in the opposite leaf axils, slender, cylindrical follicles, tapering to a point at the apex containing many flattened, black, ovate-oblong seeds with a silvery white coma.

burning sensation, leucoderma, leprosy, skin diseases, asthma, bronchitis, eye disorders, epileptic fits, worm infestations, diarrhoea, dysentery, bleeding, leucorrhoea, syphilis, fever, general debility, vomiting, wounds, inflammation, liver and nerve disorders, syphilis, cough, asthma, conjunctivitis, piles, jaundice, scorpion sting, cancer