Chironji

Subdeciduous trees, up to 18 m high, bark 10-12 mm thick, surface black or dark brown, rough, tessellate the cracks being deep and narrow, somewhat resembling crocodile hide; blaze red. Leaves simple, alternate, stipulate; petiole 12-22 mm, stout, glabrous; lamina 10-23.5 x 5-12 cm, broadly oblong, base round or acute, apex obtuse or emarginate, margin entire, glabrous above and densely tomentose beneath, coriaceous; lateral nerves 10-20 pairs, pinnate, prominent, pubescent, secondary laterals prominent, intercostal reticulate, prominent.

Flowers bisexual, greenish-white, sessile, in the pubescent terminal and axillary panicles; calyx lobes 5, persistent; petals 5, oblong, reflexed, pilose; stamens 10, inserted at the base of fleshy disc; filaments free, glabrous; disc cupular, 5 lobed, pilose; carpels 5-6, free, superior, tomentose, 4 reduced to thread-like processes, one fertile, ovule one, pendulous; style lateral; stigma truncate. Fruit a drupe, 10-13 x 8 mm, oblong, laterally compressed, black; stone-hard, 2 valved; seed one.