Rubia cordifolia

Rubia cordifolia, commonly known as Indian madder, manjistha, or in Chinese medicine as qian cao, is a climbing or scrambling herbaceous perennial in the family Rubiaceae, widely distributed across temperate and tropical Asia from the Himalayas to Japan, and extending into parts of Africa. The plant produces slender, four-angled, often prickly stems that climb to 1.5 metres or more by means of small recurved bristles on the angles. Leaves are arranged in whorls of four or more, ovate to cordate, 2 to 9 cm long, with conspicuously cordate bases, palmately three- to five-veined, and rough or bristly margins. The inflorescence is an open terminal or axillary cyme of tiny five-lobed, greenish-white to pale yellow tubular flowers. Fruits are small, fleshy, two-lobed berries that ripen from green through red to glossy black. The most distinctive feature is the long cylindrical reddish to deep red-brown perennial root, which yields the historically important madder dye and is the principal medicinal part used in both Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine.