Botany
· An erect, branched, usually more or less hairy herb, 0.2 to 1.5 m high.
· Leaves: 1- to 2-pinnatifid and 15 cm more or less, the upper one being usually much smaller; segments ovate-lanceolate, 2 to 5 cm long and toothed.
· Flowers: disc flowers brown, yellowish or nearly white. Inner involucral bracts with broad, scarious margins. Flowering head about 8 mm long.
· Fruits: achenes black, long and slender, linear, 1 to 1.5 cm long and characterized by four projections at the apex.

Distribution
In waste places, chiefly at medium altitudes, ascending to 2,200 meters from Batanes and Babuyan Islands and Northern Luzon to Mindanao.

Parts utilized
· Entire plant.
· Collect before flower opens, rinse, sun-dry, section into pieces or compress.

Constituents
Plant contains iodine; the leaves, tanin and aponin; the flowers, suflur.

Properties
Sweet tasting, mildly refrigerant, antipyretic-antiinfection.

Folkloric uses
· Used as preventive for influenza or cold, used for treatment of swelling pain at the throat, fever among infants, fear of cold weather.
· Used for poisonous insects and snake bite.
· For enteritis, flatulence, diarrhea, appendicitis.
· For sprains, contusions, chronic ulcers.
· Used to stop wound bleeding.
· For piles, chronic ulcers, various skin diseases.
· Dosage: use 30 to 60 gms of dried material or 90 to 150 gms fresh material in decoction. Fresh materials may be pounded and applied as poultice or boiled in water and applied as external wash.

Note: This plant closely resembles Bidens tripartita which may be differentiated on the shape of the leaves, however the medicinal function of this plant is identical with Bidens pilosa and hence may be used as a substitute.

Availability
Wild-crafted.