Description

• Indian Ash Tree is a deciduous tree, growing up to 14 m tall. Branchlets are minutely covered with starry hairs.
• Alternately arranged leaves are pinnate, with a single terminal leaflet (pinnae) at the end. The spine carrying the leaflets is up to 7 cm long.
• Leaflets are usually 5, each lateral opposite, ovate, base rounded, densely velvet-hairy when young.
• Flowers are unisexual, greenish, the male in compound and female in simple racemes.
• Fruit is ovoid, compressed, in panicles, at the end of leafless branches.

Uses

• Young leaves and sprouts – raw or cooked.
• The gum obtained from the trunk is often used in confectionery.
• The powdered bark is used as a flavouring. The bark and the leaves are used as medicine. The bark contains tannins. It is used for the impregnation of fishnets.
• The wood is moderately hard, close-grained. It is used for spear shafts, scabbards, wheel-spokes, oil presses, grain pounders etc.