Distribution and habitat: Throught out India, wild as well as cultivated. 

Botany: A medium sized aromatic, deciduous tree, upto 27 m in height. 

• Leaves: Compound, crowded at the ends of the branches, leaflets large having parallel nerves meeting in an intramarginal nerve.
• Bark: Thick, surface light grey to grayish bark, shallowly furrowed or cracked longitudinally, brittle, their fracture splintery.
• Flowers: Many, in terminal spreading panicles. Starts flowering 2-3 years after sowing.
• Fruits: Fleshy drupes with woody endocarp, surrounded by longitudinal interwoven fibrous, young fruits green colour, turning light yellow or greenish yellow on ripening. One seed per drupe.
• Seeds : The stone is semi-woody, 2.5 cm long and 2.1 cm diameter, fibrous outside, 5 celled, polyembryonic. Seeds mature in 8 to 9 months after flowering during December to May

Properties: 

• The bark is aromatic, astringent and refrigerant.
• The leaves are aromatic, acidic, astringent.
• The unripe fruits are astringent, thermogenic, appetizer and aphrodisiac. The ripe fruits are sweet, astringent, cooling, emollient, tonic, constipating and antiscorbutic.

Uses: 

• The leaves are used in dysentery. The juice of the leaves is recommended for local application in otalgia.
• The unripe fruits are used in dysentery.  The ripe fruits are used in bilious dyspepsia, diarrhea, general debility.
• The bark is useful in dysentery, diarrhea, vomiting and muscular rheumatism.
• The roots are useful in regulating menstruation.

Agrotechnology

Propagation: To collect seeds, fruits are squeezed under water to remove the pulp. The stones are then dried under partial shade and stored. It has 2-3 months of dormancy. Seeds remain viable only up to 7 months.  Overnight soaking of seed in water is preferred before sowing. It takes 17-20 days to germinate after sowing.  One month old seedlings are ready to be transplanted in the prepared fields. 

Spacing : 5 m x 5 m

Seed requirement per acre : 1 kg

Seedlings required per acre: 160 nos.