Distribution and Habitat: Throughout India

Botany: A moderate sized evergreen maritime tree with acrid milky poisonous juice, glabrous, branchlets whorled, marked with leaf scars. 

• Leaves: Bright green closely set at the ends of branches,12.5-25 x 3.82-6.3 cm,  lanceolate or oblanceolate, glabrous, tapering sharply to the base, nerves many and connected by an intramarginal vein. Petioles 2-3.8 cm long.
• Flowers: Large white with a yellow throat, in terminal cymes. Peduncles 5-15 cm long. Calyx glabrous, corolla tube 1.3-2 cm long. Ovary of two distinct carpels united by a single style.
• Fruits: Large, green, drupes with fibrous pericarp, 5-10 cm long. Seeds usually solitary.

Properties: Bark, leaves and milky juice are purgative and emetic.

Uses: It is used in ring worm infestation, vata, skin diseases in children

Chemical constituents: 

• Root-β-sitosterol. Root bark and stem bark yield gentiobiosyl thevetoside, glucosyl thevetoside and thevetosides of tanghinigenine
• Leaf- succinic acid, nicotiflorin, rutin, clitorin
• Seed – cerbertin, cerbertatin, thevetin

Propagation: Seeds