Habitat : — Throughout India, from the Indus eastwards, and southwards to Ceylon and Malacca.
A gregarious evergreen shrub or small tree. Bark thin, grey, exfoliating, in long thin strips. Heart-wood extremely hard and close-grained, dark brown, with an irregular outline, sometimes mottled with black ; sap-wood pale. Pores very small, scattered or in short radial lines. Medullary rays fine, very numerous, the distance between them equal to the diameter of the pores (Gamble). Shoots terete or somewhat angular. Leaves more or less viscid, with shining yellowish resin, very variable in breadth, 1-5 by 1 -1½in., undivided, oblanceolate, glabrous, subapiculate, base cuneate-alternate, subsessile, margin, revolute, entire or nearly so. Cymes terminal, short. Flowers regular, yellowish, polygamous, inconspicuous. Sepals oblong, 5-2 imbricate or valvate, 1/10-⅛in long. Petals absent. Stamens usually 8, as long as sepals in male flowers, shorter than the sepals in hermaphrodite (lowers ; filaments much shorter than the anthers. Disk inconspicuous. Ovary 3 or 4- celled, 2 ovules in each cell. Style cylindric, 2-lobed on top. Fruit a membranous capsule, with 2-4 broad wings from base to style, ½ in. long and ¾in. across, including the wings, separating septicidally into as many valves as cells, each valve winged on its back. Seeds opaque, dark brown or black, with a thickened funicle.
Parts used : — The leaves.
Uses : — The leaves of this shrub are viscid, and have a somewhat sour and bitter taste (Dymock.)
Lindley says the leaves are used in baths and fomentations.
It is believed that the powdered leaves applied over a wound will heal it without leaving a white scar. It is applied in burns and scalds. Said to be useful also in rheumatism (C. J. Peters in Watt's Dictionary.) Said to possess febrifuge properties.
In the Punjab, it is used in snake-bite. For this purpose, the leaves are bruised and applied to the bitten part ; juice of the leaves is also given internally (B. D. B.).
