India: Rasamala.
Region: East Asia, southwestern China, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia.
Habitat: tropical montane evergreen broadleaved forests; elevations 500 to 1700 metres; sunny or lightly shaded position; most fertile, well-drained soils, preferably of a medium to heavy texture, pH in the range 5 to 6.
Use: timber; young reddish-brown tips of the branches are eaten raw or cooked as a vegetable; interplanted with
Leucaena leucocephala in young plantations to suppress weeds; yellow, scented resin from the stems, wounded bark, a fragrant, honey-like balsam, as a perfume, incense and a medicine; dried bark is a useful tinder; young trees are very elegant with a dense crown and pyramidal shape, the crown later becoming more rounded; wood for frames of bridges, columns and beams for construction, power transmission poles, telephone poles and railway sleepers, heavy construction, vehicle bodies, ship and boat building, heavy flooring, rafters, veneer, plywood, pulp.
BotanyEvergreen tree; 10 to to 50 metres tall.
Stem: red to blackish-brown wood, heavy, fine-grained, very durable, in direct contact with the soil.
Flower: blooming all year round.
Pollination: by wind?
Seeds: sweetly scented.
Dispersion: by ants, also by monkeys and birds.