Senegalia chundra - Red Cutch Tree

Red Cutch Tree is a deciduous tree up to 8 m tall, with bark rusty brown; rough, peeling off in thin flakes; branchlets smooth, hairless, pale purplish-brown. Leaves are double compound, alternate, stipulate; stipular spines short, hooked to 8 mm; axis 8-10 cm long, slender, grooved above, pulvinate, hairless; pinnae 10-15 pairs opposite, even pinnate, 2-4 cm long, slender, with a gland at the base of lowest pair of pinnae and between 1-2 extreme pairs on upper side; leaflets 30-60, opposite, stalkless, stipels absent; blade 4-10 x 1-2 mm, linear-oblong, base unequally flat, tip blunt, margin entire, hairless, papery, midrib subcentral, lateral nerves obscure. Flowers are yellowish-white, 2 mm across, in 1-3 clustered spikes in leaf-axils, shorter than leaves. Calyx tube bell-shaped, 1 mm long, 5-lobed, hairless; flower three times as long as calyx, lobes linear-lanceshaped, hairless; stamens many, fused at base; ovary stipitate, sickle shaped, upto 1.5 mm, hairless; style thread-like; stigma small, at branch-ends. Fruit a pod, 5-10 x 1.5-2 cm, stipitate, flat, thin, hairless, strongly nerved, blunt at base, apically horned; suture wavy, depressed between seeds; seeds ca.6, ovoid, greenish-brown. Red Cutch Tree is found in Peninsular India, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.