Extensively cultivated for fuel, erosion control, and as a windbreak, hedge plant, timber yielding, bonsai material.

മണ്ണൊലിപ്പ് തടയുന്നു. വിറകാവശ്യത്തിനായി ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നു.

Dioecious trees, to 30 m high, bark brown, rough, peeling off in vertical strips. Leaves scaly alternating with the ribs of the upper node. Flowers in spikes; male flowers: in terminal spikes, pendulous, brown; tepals 2, lanceolate; stamen 1; anther oblong; female flowers: in axillary spikes, solitary or in pairs, condensed into an ovoid cone, shortly stalked; tepals absent; ovary superior. Fruit a carpophores, ovoid; nutlets compressed; seeds winged.