A deciduous tree up to 45 m tall; bole fluted below when old, up to 60(—120) cm in diameter; bark grey-brown, smooth, lenticellate, becoming lightly fissured or scaly with age; inner bark yellowish; sapwood whitish, heartwood rusty brown; crown widely spreading, with sparsely branched limbs. Twigs upturned at end of drooping branchlets, smooth, brown, lenticellate, with raised cicatrices; leafy twigs with fulvous stellate hairs. Leaves bipinnate, occasionally wholly or partly tripinnate, more or less opposite, (15—)23—80 cm long, glabrescent; petiole 8—30 cm long, terete, lenticellate, swollen at base; pinnae in 3—7 pairs, up to 25 cm long; petiolule 3—7 mm long; leaflets in 3—7 pairs, opposite or nearly so, ovate or oblong-lanceolate to elliptical, 2—10 cm x 0.6—3.8 cm, base slightly unequilateral, acute to rounded, apex acuminate, margin entire to variously serrate. Inflorescence a thyrse, axillary or in axil of rudimentary leaves on short shoots, 10—22 cm long, primary branches 5—7.5 cm long, secondary branches up to 2 cm long, bearing fascicles of flowers; bracts 3—10 mm long, filiform, caducous, bracteoles similar but smaller; pedicel 2—3 mm long; flowers purplish, fragrant, bisexual or male, 5-merous; calyx tubular, about 2 mm in diameter, lobes about 2 mm long, exterior stellate and with simple hairs; petals free, narrowly oblong, 6—10 mm x 2 mm, white to lilac or bluish, outside minutely pubescent; staminal tube about 7 mm long, lilac turning deep purple, exterior glabrous, interior with dense simple hairs; anthers 10, sessile; pistil glabrous, stigma clavate, 5-lobed. Fruit a drupe, ellipsoid-globose, 2—4 cm x 1—2 cm, yellow-brown when ripe, glabrous, up to 5-seeded. Seed oblongoid, 3.5 mm x 1.6 mm, smooth, brown.

Its various parts have antihelmintic, antimalarial, cathartic, emetic and emmenagogic properties. Bark is anthelmintic, and in large doses narcotic and emetic.

PROSEA (Plant Resources of South-East Asia) Foundation
AgroForestryTree Database

Caffeic acid, catechin, ferulic acid, fraxinellone, gedunin, glutamic acid, glycine, kaempferol, nimbin, quercetin (plant); esculetin, quercitrin, rutin, scopoletin (leaf); acetic acid, cinnamic acid, cycloeucalenol, vanillin (fruit); alpha-terpineol, aromadendrene, benzyl acetate, chavicol, creosol, eugenol, geranyl acetate, linalyl acetate (wood); arginine, leucine, lysine, methionine, threonine, palmitic acid, stearic acid (seed); astragalin, hyperin (flower); benzoic acid, beta-sitosterol (root); tannin, vanillic acid (bark); carvacrol (essential oil).

Used to treat skin diseases (plant); as an external parasiticide (dried ripe fruit)