Description: Small trees. Leaves simple, alternate, distichous. Flowers bisexual, greenish-yellow, in 15-20 flowered dense cymose axillary fascicles. Fruit a drupe, oblong-globose; seeds 1 or 2, compressed.
Habit: Tree
Habitat: Rocky areas in deciduous forests, also planted in the plains
Flowering & Fruiting: February-April
Parts used: Fruit, root and leaves
Properties & Uses: Fruits are used for the treatment of cuts, ulcers, pulmonary ailments and fevers; the dried fruit is a mild laxative. Seeds are sedative and are taken sometimes with butter, to halt nausea, vomiting and abdominal pains in pregnancy. Mixed with oil, they are rubbed on rheumatic areas. Leaves are helpful in liver trouble, asthma and fever. Bitter, astringent bark decoction is taken to stop diarrhoea and dysentery and relieve gingivitis. A root decoction is given as a febrifuge, taeniacide and emmenagogue, and the powdered root is dusted on wounds. Dried root is also used to treat diarrhoea. Root is also used in the treatment of epilepsy.