Habitat : — Tropical outer Himalaya, from Sirmoor to Sikkim, and throughout the hotter parts of India, as far east as Assam (absent in the Eastern Peninsula).
A handsome tree, 20-40ft. high ; deciduous, girth 4-6ft. Bark 1in thick, dusky grey ; wounds on bark yield a brownish soft gum which dissolves slowly in the mouth. Wood ash-coloured, reddish white or brown ; even, but open-grained ; full of acrid juice, causing irritation and swelling. Leaves generally closely arranged at the extremities of the branchlets of numerous spreading branches ; simple, alternate, very coriaceous, flat ; 9-30in. by 5-12in., cuneate, oblong or obovate-oblong, rarely linear-oblong. Apex rounded, margins entire, cartilaginous. Base rounded, cordate or cuneate ; surface opaque above, slightly pubescent, especially when young, whitish or glaucous and thickly pubescent beneath. Nerves 16-25 pair, stout, slightly arched, pale whitly. Venation marked coarse on the under surface. Petiole l-2in., densely puberulous ; small, ¼-⅓in. diam., subsessile, fascicled in erect tomentose compound terminal panicles. Bracts and bracteoles fugacious Estivation imbricate. Female and Hermaphrodite flowers 1½-¼in. long, longer than the almost sessile male flowers. Calyx 5-fid. ; segments deciduous. Corolla greenish white or greenish yellow; petals 5, 3 or 4 times the length of Calyx, oblong, pointed at the apex, inserted under the margin of the disk, sessile, glabrous, very spreading. Disk annular, broad, between stamens and ovary. Stamens 5, alternate, inserted on the margins of the disk ; imperfect or sterile in female flowers, equal, distinct ; filaments subulate from a somewhat dilated base, of the length of petals. Anthers ovoid or elliptical, yellow. Ovary free, sessile, one-celled, densely appressed, tawny, hispid. Styles 3, divergent, incrassate. Stigma subclavate, shortly 2-lobed or retused . Ovules inserted at apex of the cell. Pendulous from a basal funicle. Male flowers often on a separate tree. Calyx and Corolla as in the hermaphrodite flower, but smaller. Filaments 5, of the length of petals. Anthers much larger than the hermaphrodites. Pistil absent or abortive. Fruit, a drupe, lin. long, and about as broad or ¾in., ovoid,
