Distribution and habitat: Throughout India, especially along river banks. 

Botany:  A small tree with a much branched head. 

• Leaves: Deciduous, 3 foliate; petioles 3.8-7.6 cm long; leaflets 5-15 x 3.8-6.3 cm, ovate, lanceolate or obovate, acute or acuminate, attenuate at the base, entire, glabrous on both surfaces, pale beneath and reticulately veined, the lateral leaflets oblique at the base; petiolules 6-9 mm long.
• Flower: Many in dense terminal corymbs, greenish white; pedicels 2.5-4.4 cm long stout, glabrous. Sepals petaloid, smooth, distant, ovate, acute. Petals (including the claw) nearly 2.5 x 0.9 cm; claw up to 6 mm long, very narrow. Stamens longer than the petals, spreading. Gynophore nearly 5cm long, terete, smooth. Ovary ellipsoid; stigma flat. The filaments of the stamens are purple or white when young, lilac when old; the gynophore is lilac; the sepals green when young, yellow or pale pink when old; the petals whitish when young, yellowish when old.
• Fruit:  Globose or ovoid, woody, smooth or scurfy berry, on the thickened gynophore.
• Seeds: Imbedded in pulp, nearly smooth, brown.

Properties: It is astringent, bitter, acrid, diuretic, anthelmintic, carminative, laxative and stomachic

Chemical constituents: Lauric, stearic, undecylic, oleic, and linolinic acid from root bark. Ceryl alcohol, lupeol, friedelin, betulinic acid and diosgenin, saponin and tannin from bark. Fruit- cetyl alcohol, ceryl alcohol, triacontane, triacontanol, β-sitosterol, and glucocapparin,. Leaves -1-stachy drine. 

Uses: Increase secretion of bile, used in baldness, sores, epidydimitis and hydrocele. 

Formulations: Dhanvantaram ghrtam

Propagation: Cuttings.