The seeds are chewed together with betel pepper as a stimulating masticatory. The ripe pods and seeds are used as a traditional laxative. The bark and seeds are used as antipyretics in the treatment of fevers. The tree is planted to provide shade in plantations. The bark has been used for tanning, but the amount of tannin is comparatively low. The heartwood is light-yellow when first cut, becoming red to pale orange-brown with age. The texture is moderately fine; the grain interlocked; the taste bitter. The wood is moderately heavy, hard, strong, moderately durable when exposed to the weather or in contact with the ground, but very durable for interior work. It has poor resistance to termites and other insects. It is used for general construction, furniture and cabinet making. Smaller pieces of the wood are used for fuel and to make charcoal.

Trees, up to 10 m high; bark grayish, smooth. Leaves alternate; leaflets opposite or subopposite, 3-10 pairs, 2.5-10.5 x 1.8-4 cm, ovate, ovate-lanceolate to ovate-elliptic. Glands absent. Racemes 6-30 cm long, aggregated into terminal leafy corymbs or from old wood. Sepals narrowly ovate, obtuse. Petals spathulate, pubescent outside, pink or carmine. Stamens 10, all fertile; three large filaments, with a distinct globular swelling in the middle, twice curved; 7 filaments half as long, almost straight. Ovary and style hairy; stigma sublateral, punctiform. Pods 30-60 x 1.5-2 cm, terete, blackish, transversely septate; seeds broadly ovate, without areole.