Botany:  A medium sized, deciduous, glabrous tree about 12 m in height with cracked and scaly black bark and irregularly fluted trunk. 

• Leaves:  Simple, opposite, elliptic, acute, chartaceous, upto 15 cm long and 6.25 cm broad. Transverse nerves about 4 pairs joining the second pair of ribs to the mid rib, glabrous, shining.
• Flowers : White, fragrant, axillary cymes; fruits ovoid or globose, glabrous berries, black when ripe.
• Seeds: One or two, yellow, circular, not much compressed, 8 mm in diameter, shining with short appressed silky hairs.

Properties: The seeds are sweet, bitter, astringent, refrigerant, demulcent, emetic, diuretic, digestive, anthelmintic, aphrodisiac, ophthalmic, appetizer, alexiteric, tonic and water purifier.

Uses: Hepatopathy, nephropathy, gonorrhoea, leucorrhoea, gastropathy, bronchitis, chronic diarrhea,  and dysentery , srangury, renal and vesical calculi, diabetes, burning sensations, dipsia, conjunctivitis, scleritis, ulcers and other eye diseases.