Perennial herbaceous plant with a horizontal rhizome and a straight stem 50-150 cm high. The leaves are three-cavity, broadly spear-shaped, with sharp-toothed edges. Flowers creamy-whitish, tubular, in paniculate inflorescence. Blooms in July-August. Honey plant. Seeds ripen in September-October.
A plant widely distributed in the forest and forest-steppe zones, it also grows in the mountain forest belt of Western, Central, Eastern Siberia and the Far East in sparse coniferous and birch-aspen forests, along ravines, river banks, and taiga meadows.
Medicinal raw materials are leaves and roots. The plant contains a large amount of carotene, ascorbic acid, alkaloids, including hastacin, which is similar in structure to platiphyllin isolated from ragwort, tannins, and tartaric acid.
Pharmacological studies of cocoa have shown that it has a wound-healing effect, which is associated with an increased content of carotene and ascorbic acid, and spasmodic, due to hastacin. The root has a laxative effect.
In folk medicine, the plant is known as a remedy for the treatment of various infectious diseases, purulent wounds, ulcers and as a laxative.