History
In the Nighantus, there are passages that describe the herbs burning and acrid properties. Religious mendicants attending fairs used the root to generate sores on their bodies in order to obtain alms. Several European writers of Indian drugs have mentioned this plant.

Habitat
Found wild in peninsular India and also cultivated as ornament.

Morphology Description (Habit)
It is a perennial, sub-scandent shrub. The leaves are ovate and glabrous. The flowers are white, in elongated spikes. The capsules are oblong, pointed, contained in a viscid glandular persistent calyx.

Principal Constituents
Plumbagin was isolated from the plant¹.

Toxicology
No adverse effect is reported on use of this plant as a drug.

Indications
It is used as a stimulant, adjunct to other preparations. It enters in numerous compound preparations. In small doses it is a powerful stimulant of the mucus membrane of the digestive organs.

1. Planta med. 1980, (Supp.) 185.