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Food/Fodder - The fruit is edible and leaves used as fodder for livestock. Cultural/Religious- It has traditional uses in washing clothes and religious ceremonies. The wood is valued for crafting the handles of dhyangro, a type of drum used by Nepalese shamans (jhakris) (Shah and Lamichhane, 2017).
Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal
It grows in dry, rocky areas, the mixed forests, and scrublands.at altitudes of 900-1600 m asl.
Its thorny branches also make it a popular choice for natural fencing and hedgerows. Is drought-tolerant.
It is a spiny, evergreen tree grow up to 10 m tall.
Stem is woody and branched with numerous sharp thorns. The bark is initially smooth, turning gray-brown and fissured with age. It often develops a corky texture. Branches are slender and initially covered in golden, silky hairs that can wear off with age (becoming glabrous).
Leaves are simple and arranged alternately on the stem. They have short petioles (leaf stalks) around 0.8-1 cm long that are also hairy (pubescent). The leaf blade (lamina) is obliquely ovate or elliptic-oblong in shape, with an uneven base (oblique) and a pointed tip (acute). The edges are serrated (have small, saw-like teeth). The upper surface of the leaf blade is hairless (glabrous), while the veins and the base with three main veins have some hairs (pubescent).
The small flowers (ca. 0.5 cm across) are borne in branching clusters called panicles. The calyx (sepals) has lobes that are triangular-shaped (deltoid) and about 0.2 cm long. petals are tiny (ca. 0.15 cm long), obovate-shaped (egg-shaped with the wider end at the tip), and spread outwards.
The fruit is a drupe, a fleshy one-seeded fruit, around 1.3-2 cm long when mature. It turns yellow and has a single seed inside. The fruit itself is hairless (glabrous) and has very little flesh (scanty pulp).
Flowering: November – January
Fruiting: May – July