Evergreen, glabrous tree, 5-20 m; 10-40 cm ø; wood soft, white. Leaves usually 3-4-jugate, 15-35 cm, stalked, in the herbarium nigrescent as all other parts; young parts ± viscid, young leaves slightly pinkish in the field (CORNER); leaflets thin, ovate-oblong to lanceolate, unequal-sided, entire, long-tipped (in seedlings sometimes toothed), 6-16 by 3-7 cm, underneath with hairy domatia. Racemes 2-8-flowered. Rachis 2-3 cm. Bracts caducous. Bracteoles 0. Pedicels 2-4 cm. Flowers not articulated. Calyx conical, coriaceous, usually arcuate, beaked, circumscissile caducous, with many microscopical glands and a field with large crateriform glands at apex, 3-6(-8½) cm. Corolla tube 12-18 cm long, the mouth 7-12 cm ø; basal tube 9-12 cm, gradually funnel-shaped expanded above the throat for 4 cm; lobes 5, broad, sub-equal, frilled round the edge, with large glands, 2½-3 cm. Stamens not exserted. Style exserted. Capsule flattened-cylindrical, ± ribbed, straight or ± arcuate, or twisted, tipped, 25-70 by 2-3 cm; valves hard leathery, pseudoseptum flattish, hard corky, c. l½-l¾ cm wide. Seeds dark grey, rectangular, in many rows, 12-18 by 6-8 mm including the thick corky wings; attachment a fine line, 8-10 mm long.
An understorey tree, usually in undisturbed lowland forest but also in secondary formations, growing in mangoves, along tidal streams, along rivers and in swamps, occasionaly also in the sandy soils of keranga forest; at elevations up to 100 metres.
Uses. Of little use other than fire-wood; in N. Borneo a collector deemed the wood useful for making clogs and matches; in the Carolines (Koror I.) leaves and fruit are said to be used as a substitute for betel leaves in chewing. HEYNE (Nutt. Pl. 1371) said that the wood is not durable, but light and easy to work for small things in the house; pieces of branches are sometimes used for floats of fishing nets in East Java and the Karimon Djawa Is.; in the Minahassa it is used for scabbards, in Madura I. for masks for the toping. In Madura a cold concoction of the leaves is also used against mouth sprew. RUMPHIUS said that in Ambon twigs of lignum equinum (translation of kaju kuda) were used for making hedges.
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