A tree 35 to 50 feet high, with many very spreading branches; bark orange-brown, thick; young shoots smooth, somewhat angular. Leaves opposite, on short petioles, without stipules, 4 to 7 inches long, oval, somewhat attenuated into the blunt twisted apex, entire, glabrous on both sides, thick, dark-green above, paler and with a prominent midrib beneath. Flowers unisexual, dioecious, of moderate size, coming from bosses in the leaf-axils on the wood of the previous years, the male on stout, straight, roughish peduncles about ¼ inch long. Seeds solitary in the cells, rounded on the back, keeled at the inner edge; embryo filling the seed, with a large thick radicle and no cotyledons; endosperm none.

Laxative (heartwood, seed coat and gum resin); anthelmintic and diuretic; toxic (in high doses).

King's American Dispensatory

Alpha and beta-guttiferin and morelloflavone (heartwood); a morellin pigment (seed).

In diabetes, jaundice and fever (fruit); in dropsy and apoplexy (gum resin). It is a valuable medicine in dropsy when given in combination with the acid tartrate of potash. An alkaline solution of the plant has been recommended and employed on the continent as a powerful diuretic.

Its use is contraindicated in gastritis, enteritis, during pregnancy, menorrhagia, hemorrhoids, in excited, irritable, or diseased uterus, and where there is irritation or disease of the urinary organs.

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