An annual or sometimes perennial herb, 30—100 cm tall, often rooting at the lower nodes, sparsely branched, subglabrous to glandular pubescent. Leaves are opposite, upper ones alternate, simple, lanceolate-elliptical to oblong to broadly ovate, 4—20 cm x 3—12 cm, base rounded-cuneate, apex acute to obtuse, margins dentate to serrate; petiole of lower leaves up to 9 cm long, upper leaves subsessile; stipules absent. Inflorescence consisting of heads in a lax terminal paniculate corymb; peduncle 1—4 cm long, involucre campanulate or cup-shaped, 2-seriate, scales subequal, herbaceous, more or less connate at the base, often glandular, head 3—7 mm x 6—10 mm, about 30-flowered. Flowers all tubular; corolla 1.5—2 mm long, 4-lobed, on the outside with glandular hairs, white or violet; stamens 5; ovary inferior; style bifid, branches slender, long thickened at the top. Fruit is an achene, obovate-oblong, irregularly triangular, 2.5—4 mm x 1 mm, glandular when young, afterwards glabrous or warty, crowned with a pappus consisting of a few clavate setae, usually thickened at the top and glandular.

As an antiscorbutic and antidiarrheic (stem and leaves)

PROSEA (Plant Resources of South-East Asia) Foundation

Applied as a poultice for headache, ulcerations of the nose, and on the abdomen against diarrhoea (crushed stems and leaves); for treating palpitations, dysuria, toothache, aphthae and sore throats, and chewed against dysentery (leaves); rubbed on the skin to relieve itch and fever, and to treat infected sores (boiled leaves); to prevent infections after childbirth (leaf extract); to arrest baldness (lotion of leaves); used to poultice sun-burned skin and applied to boils and ulcers to ripen them (paste of leaves); to treat ear infections(fresh juice of plant); lung congestion, pneumonia, oedema and inflammation (whole plant); to treat sore eyes (bark); as a cure for stomach-ache (decoction of root).