Distribution and habitat: Throughout India, in deciduous forests upto 1,200 m.

Botany: A large deciduous tree 18-30 m in height with a straight trunk and fairly smooth yellowish-brown bark. 

• Leaves: Imparippinnate, large, clustered towards the end of the branchlets, leaflets 3-6 pairs, short-stalked often unequal-sided at the base, main nerves 8-10 pairs.
• Flowers: Yellow, tinged with red, fragrant, in lax drooping terminal cymose panicles.
• Fruits: Capsules, cylindric, slender, curved, somewhat rough with elevated white specks; seeds winged at each end, wings membranous.
• Roots: Dull brown, cylindrical, hard and heavy with transversely extended lenticles.

Chemical constituents: Lapachol, dinantin-7-glucuronide, β-sitosterol, n-triacontanol, and dehydro-α-lapachone.

Uses:  

• The roots are acrid, astringent, anodyne, appetizer, constipating, diuretic, lithontriptic, expectorant, diuretic, antibacterial, febrifuge and tonic.
• The fruits and flowers are sweet, cooling and astringent.Dyspepsia, diarrhea, strangury, renal and vesical calculi, cough, asthma, hiccough, dyspepsia, haemorrhoids, hyperacidity, vomiting, dropsy, fever and general debility.
• The leaves are useful in otalgia, odontalgia,  rheumatalgia, malarial fever and wounds.
• The flowers are useful in burning sensation, cardiopathy, hiccough and general debility.
• The fruits are useful in vata and pitta.
• The seeds are useful for external application in hemicrania.

Propagation: Seed