A moderate-sized evergreen tree with short, straight, often fluted trunk and spreading branches. Leaves are simple, alternate or subopposite, oblong, coriaceous, glabrous, main nerves oblique, reticulation prominent and bright red when young; flowers are unisexual, males 3-12 together in panicled drooping cymes, females considerably longer than the males, solitary and sub sessile; fruits are ovoid or globose and yellow when ripe; fruiting calyx thickly coriaceous and flat; seeds are compressed ,2-8, oblong and shiny.

Astringent (fruit and stem bark); acrid, bitter and oleaginous (unripe fruit); cooling, anti-inflammatory, constipating, depurative and febrifuge (bark); diuretic, carminative, laxative, ophthalmic and stypic (leaves); diuretic and aphrodisiac (flowers).

For wounds and ulcers;in vitiated conditions of pitta, burning sensation, inflammations, diarrhea, dysentery, leprosy, skin diseases, pruritus, dyspepsia, haemorrhages, burns, diabetes, fever, spermatorrhea and vaginal disorders (bark); in strangury, dyspepsia, flatulence, scotoma, nyctalopia, opthalamia, epistaxis, haemoptysis, burns, tubercular glands, scabies and wounds (leaves); in leucorrhoea, urethrorrhea, splenomegaly, nyctalopia, anaemia and scabies (flowers).

Sharma PV. Classical Uses of Medicinal Plants.