Armed, scandent or erect shrub or a small tree, 6 m. tall or more, bark is pale brown, deep-furrowed; leaves are imparipinnate or trifoliolate, 5-23 cm. long, often with flattened prickless: leaflets are up to 5 pairs, opposite, ovate to lanceolate, entire to glandular-crenate, acute to obtusely acuminate; flowers are green or yellow, in dense terminal, and occasionally axillary sparse panicles; follicles are generally reddish, sub-globose, glabrous; seeds are solitary in a fruit, globose, shining black.

Anthelmintic and antibacterial (fruit’s essential oil); kills insects and toxic (to fish) (seed and bark); carminative (seed); carminative, stomachic and anthelmintic (bark, fruit, seed).

Plants for a Future
Herb Information

Lignans (dried bark); linalyl and linalool (fruit’s essential oil); berberine, dictamnine, (bark); citral, geraniol, limonene, linalyl-acetate, sabinene (fruit); skimmianine, spilanthol (root).

Leucoderma, problems with the spleen, diseases of the eye and ear, asthma and tumors (fruit); for gastrointestinal disorders; in treating tumours, odontalgia, cephalagia, opthalmia, dyspepsia, colic, flatulence, helminthiasis, diarrhoea, hepatopathy, splenitis, strangury, fever, leucoderma, leprosy, skin diseases, cough, asthma, paralysis, gout, convulsions, diabetes, wounds, ulcers, stomatitis, pharyngitis, cardiac debility and general debility (bark and fruit)

Chandel et al., Biodiversity in Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in India.