Common Name : Pongam Tree, Indian Beech Tree, Pongame Oil Tree

Pongamia pinnata is a medium-sized evergreen or briefly deciduous, glabrous shrub or tree 15-25m high, with straight or crooked trunk 50-80cm or more in diameter and broad crown of spreading or drooping branches. Bark grey-brown, smooth or faintly vertically fissured. Branchlets hairless with pale stipule scars. Leaves alternate, imparipinnate with long slender leafstalk, hairless, pinkish-red when young, glossy dark green above and dull green with prominent veins beneath when mature. Leaflets 5-9, paired except at end, short-stalked, ovate elliptical or oblong, 5-25 x 2.5-15cm, obtuseacuminate at apex, rounded to cuneate at base, not toothed at the edges, slightly thickened. Inflorescence raceme-like, axillary, 6-27cm long, bearing pairs of strongly fragrant flowers; calyx campanulate, 4-5mm long, truncate, finely pubescent. Flower clusters at base of and shorter than leaves, to 15cm long, slender, drooping. Flowers 2-4 together, short-stalked, pea-shaped, 15-18mm long. Calyx campanulate, 4-5mm long, truncate, finely pubescent; corolla white to pink, purple inside, brownish veined outside, 5-toothed, standard rounded obovate 1-2 cm long, with basal auricles, often with green central blotch and thin silky hairs on back; wings oblong, oblique, slightly adherent to obtuse keel. Pods borne in quantities, smooth, oblique oblong to ellipsoid, 3-8 x 2-3.5 x 1-1.5cm, flattened but slightly swollen, slightly curved with short, curved point (beaked), brown, thick-walled, thick leathery to sub-woody, hard, indehiscent, 1-2 seeded, short stalked. Seed compressed ovoid or elliptical, bean-like, 1.5-2.5 x 1.2-2 x 0.8cm, with a brittle coat long, flattened, dark brown, oily.