Distribution and habitat: Throughout India.

Botany:  A moderate sized handsome deciduous tree, 8-15 m in height with greenish grey smooth bark when young, and rough when old, exfoliate in hard scale. 

• Leaves: Bipinnately compound, leaflets 4-8 pairs, ovate, acute, bright green, glabrous above, paler and silvery pubescent beneath when young, main nerves numerous.
• Flowers: Bright yellow in lax pendulous racemes.
• Fruits: Cylindric pods, 30-60 cm long, shortly stipitate, nearly straight, smooth, shiny, brownish black.
• Seeds: Ovate, horizontally immersed in dark coloured sweetish pulp.

Properties: Anti-viral, Anti-cancerous, hypoglycemic

Chemical constituents: 

• Leaves contain anthraquinone derivatives and very little tannin. Ceryl alcohol, fistulin, leucopelargonidin tetramer, kaempferol, rhein and glucoside in flowers.
• Root bark, tannin, phlobaphenes and oxy-anthraquinone substance.
• Pulp contains rhein, glucose, sucrose, and fructose, volatile oil, three waxy substances and resinous substance. Fistulic acid from pods, fistucacidin from bark.

Uses: Skin diseases, tuberculosis, syphilis, burning sensation, inflammations, rheumatism, colic and burning sensation, boils, colic, fever, cardiopathy, leprosy, ulcers and intermittent fevers, pruritus, burning sensation, dry cough and bronchitis

Propagation: Seeds