Common Name : Sandalwood

It is a shrub or tree and grows primarily in the wet tropical biome. It is an evergreen tree, growing up to 4-9 m tall. The trees have a long life, and may live up to one hundred years of age. The tree is variable in habit, usually upright to sprawling, and may intertwine with other species. The plant parasitises the roots of other tree species, but without major detriment to its hosts. The reddish or brown bark can be almost black and is smooth in young trees, becoming cracked with a red reveal. The heartwood is pale green to white as the common name indicates. The oval leaves are thin, oppositely arranged. Smooth surface is shiny and bright green, with a glaucous pale underside. Flowers purplish-brown, small, straw coloured, reddish, green or violet, about 4-6 mm long, up to 6 in small terminal or axillary clusters, unscented in axillary or terminal, paniculate cymes. Fruit a globose, fleshy drupe; red, purple to black when ripe, about 1 cm in diameter, with hard ribbed endocarp and crowned with a scar, almost stalkless, smooth, single seeded. Fruit is produced after three years, viable seeds after five. These seeds are distributed by birds.