Acacia catechu (L.f.)Willd.

Habit: Small tree

Bark exfoliating in long strips. Spines curved, paired. Fruit a flat pod, pointed at both ends.

Deciduous, gregarious trees, to 15 m high; bark dark greyish-brown to dark brown, rough, about 1.3 cm thick, exfoliating in long, narrow rectangular strips; blaze brownish-red; branchlets brown, glabrous. Leaves bipinnate, alternate, stipulate; stipular spines slightly infra axillary, paired, 3-10 mm long, straight or hooked, occasionally lacking on flowering branchlets; rachis 8-19.5 cm, slender, pulvinate, downy, grooved above, with a gland near the base of the rachis on the upper side; pinnae 10-20 pairs, 3.6-8 cm long, opposite, downy, slender, with a gland in between the terminal 6 pairs on the lower side, leaflets 30-50, opposite, paripinnate, sessile, stipels absent; lamina 2.5-8 x 0.5-1.5 mm, linear-oblong, base unequally truncate, apex round, obtuse, or mucronate, margin entire, pubescent, chartaceous; midrib subcentral at base, lateral nerves obscure. Flowers pale yellow, sessile, in long solitary or in groups of 2-4 axillary spikes; bracts cauducous; calyx cupular-campanulate, 1-1.5 x 1.3-1.5 mm, teeth triangular or deltoid; corolla 2.5-3 mm long, lobes oblong, ovate to linear-lanceolate; stamens many, 4.5-5 mm long; ovary stipitate, 0.8-1.2 mm long, oblong-ellipsoid; style 4-5 mm long; stigma terminal. Fruit a pod 5-10 x 1-1.6 cm, flat, straight, unlobed or sinuate along margins, thin walled, beaked at apex, brown, narrowed at base into a stipe, dehiscent; seeds 3-10, orbicular or ovate, flattened.

Maharashtra: Kolhapur

Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.