Indian cherry is a small to moderate-sized deciduous tree with a short bole and spreading crown. The stem bark is greyish brown, smooth or longitudinally wrinkled. Flowers are short-stalked, bisexual and white in colour, appear in loose corymbose cymes. The flowers open only at night. The fruit is a yellow or pinkish-yellow shining globose or ovoid drupe seated in a saucer-like enlarged calyx. It turns black on ripening and the pulp gets viscid. Indian cherry grows in the sub-Himalayan tract and outer ranges, ascending up to about 1500 m elevation. It is found in a variety of forests ranging from the dry deciduous forests of Rajasthan to the moist deciduous forests of Western Ghats and tidal forests in Myanmar. In Maharashtra, it grows in moist monsoon forest also.