Aerva lanata L. (Family: Amaranthaceae) known as ‘Bisheri Booti’ in Indian subcontinent, has been mentioned in few classical Unani literature and is used frequently by Hakeems of Western Uttar Pradesh in different urinary diseases. In Unani literatures it has found only fractional description where mainly organoleptic characters have been described. Till now Unani physicians have not adopted scientific methods for identification and standardization of a numbers of Unani drugs including Bisehri Booti (A. lanata). The present study was therefore undertaken to determine the preliminary physico-chemical and phytochemical characteristics of A. lanata on qualitative parameters in which it was found that alkaloids, amino acids, proteins, glycosides, saponins, tannins, sterol/terpenes, sugars and flavonoids were present, while phenol and resins were absent. A number of attributes such as solubility in alcohol (1.67%) and water (3.07%), pH at 1% (7.39) and 10% (6.36%), moisture content (4.2%), total ash value (7.30%), loss of weight on drying (5.92%), bulk density (0.33%), successive extractive values Petrolium ether (2.92%), Diethyl-ether (0.22%), Chloroform (0.38%), Acetone (0.27%), Alcohol (9.27%), Water (14.38%), non successive extractive values in Alcohol (11.98%) and water (12.69%) were recorded. These parameters may help to standardize the test drug.