Description

• The toothbrush tree is a small tree or shrub with a crooked trunk, seldom more than one foot in diameter, its bark scabrous and cracked, whitish with pendulous extremities.
• The root bark of the tree is light brown, and the inner surfaces are white, the odour is like cress and its taste is warm and pungent. Its fibrous branches have been used as toothbrushes.
• Leaves oblong-elliptic to almost circular, 3 x 7 cm, light to dark green, rather fleshy, sometimes with wartlike glandular dots and dense, rather loose ஹேர்ஸ்டைல்.
• Flowers greenish to yellowish, very small, in loose, slender-branched axillary or terminal panicles, up to 10 cm long.
• Fruit spherical, fleshy, 5-10 mm in diameter, pink to scarlet when mature, single seeded; seeds turn from pink to purple-red and are semi-transparent when mature.

Uses

• The fruits are eaten both fresh and dried.
• The fresh leaves are used in salad.
• The flowers are small and fragrant and are used as a stimulant and are mildly purgative.
• The wood is used for charcoal and firewood.