Tree seldom exceeds 20 feet in height, with a stem whose diameter is from 2 to 6 inches, having irregular branches, and a smooth bark. The leaves are alternate, trifoliate, and petiolate; the leaflets oval, acute at the base, acuminate at the apex, smooth, glossy, bright-green, having a tobacco-like smell when fresh and bruised, from 6 to 10 inches long, 2 to 4 broad, some of them marked with small, whitish, round spots. The petiole is about the length of the leaflets, and slightly channeled. The flowers are white and beautiful, with a narcotic odor, and are borne in cylindrical, contracted, stalked panicles, longer than the leaves, the branches being about three-flowered. Calyx inferior, campanulate, five-toothed, hairy; corolla somewhat curved before expansion, nearly an inch long, downy on both sides; of the five petals, two larger than the others. Sterile stamens, five, subulate, tipped with a pellucid, watery gland, fertile stamens, two; style, erect; stigma, simple. The fruit or carpels are five, or fewer by abortion, becoming villous as they mature, two-seeded, with a strong, elastic, separable, two-valved endocarp.

Antipyretic, carminative, emetic, gastrotonic, laxative, stimulant, stomachic, tonic.

King's American Dispensatory
The British Pharmaceutical Codex

Angosturin (bark)

In the treatment of anorexia, in bilious diarrhoeas and dysenteries, intermitterits, dropsies, dyspepsia, fever, hypoacidity.