A tree that grows to a height of 30m with a girth of 2m. Bole is buttressed, the buttresses are up to 3m high and 2m in girth. Bark has elongated scales, fissured regularly longitudinally, and grayish. Inner bark is fibrous, evokes a pleasant cedar fragrance, is orange–red or pink, and turns rapidly orange–brown. Sapwood is yellowish-white. Wood is sweet scented and peppery. Leaves are paripinnate with 4–5 pairs of folioles. Rachis is velvety and 38–50cm long. Petiolules are 4mm long. Folioles are 17cm × 5–14cm × 4–12.8cm × 3.5–13cm × 4.5cm, and show 11 pairs of secondary nerves. Flowers are 4mm long on 2mm-long pedicels, powerfully and obnoxiously scented, detectable 100 feet away, white, and in 40cm-long panicles. Corolla is white or flushed pink and 3mm long. Fruits are 1.5cm × 8mm rusty, lenticelled capsules opening to release several flat seeds winged at both ends.

Used as a tonic to lower fever and to assuage rheumatic pains (bark); applied to swellings (leaf tips).

Christophe Wiart. Medicinal Plants of Asia and the Pacific, P:203-204, CRC Press, June 2006