Forest Ebony is a tree up to 35 m tall. Bark is
greyish brown, smooth; blaze reddish. Branchlets are slender, round,
hairless except the flush with adpressed hairs. Leaves are simple,
alternate, leaf-stalk 0.3-1.2 cm long, hairless, flat above. Leaf blade
is 6-15 x 3-6 cm, elliptic to narrow elliptic, tip tapering and
twisted, base pointed or slightly narrowed, margin curled when dry,
papery or somewhat leathery, hairless, drying black; secondary nerves
7-9 pairs. Flowers are dioecious or polygamous; male flowers greenish,
in dichasial cyme; female flowers solitary or 3 flowered cyme. Male
flowers: 6-10 in in leaf-axils cymes, 6 mm across; flower-cluster-stalk
5 mm long, finely velvet-hairy; calyx 3 mm long, bell-shaped; sepals 4,
ovate, flower 6 mm long, bell-shaped, petals 4, triangular, blunt;
stamens about 24. Female flowers; solitary or 3 together, 8-10 mm
across; calyx much longer than in male, sepals ovate-oblong, pointed.
Flower are bell-shaped; petals triangular, blunt; staminodes 4. Berry
is spherical, to 2 cm across, hairless; fruiting calyx reflexed; seeds
2-8. Forest Ebony is found in Indo-Malesia, peninsular India.
Flowering: March-April.