Distribution and habitat: A native of tropical America; it is grown in India.

Botany: A tree 5-18 m high, the ultimate branches often pendulous, armed with short, sharp, stipular spines.

• Leaves: Evenly 2-pinnate, 4-8 cm long; pinnae a single pair, each pinna bearing a single pair of oblique, ovate-oblong, obtuse, 1-4 cm long leaflets.
• Flowers: White, in dense heads about 1 cm diameter, their peduncles solitary or fascicled in the axils of small bracts, along the slender branchlets. Pods turgid, twisted, often spiral, 10-18 cm long, about 1 cm wide, dehiscent along the lower suture, the valves red when ripe.
• Seeds: 6-8, surrounded by an edible, whitish, pulpy arillus.

Uses: The bark is a febrifuge. The decoction is given as an enema. 

Propagation: Seeds.