Vern.: Bed-i-laila, Safaida.

Medium sized tree. Young branches silky to glabrous, brown with longitudinal furrows. Leaves c. 5-12(-18) x c. 1.5-5 cm, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, entire to finely serrate, acute to acuminate, green and glabrous above, pale beneath, ± silky when young. Petiole 5-18 mm. Towards the base of the shoots the leaves are usually smaller. Stipules caducous, on vigorous shoots conspicuous, semicordate with gland tipped teeth. Flowers appearing after the leaves. Male catkin 5-13 cm long. Peduncle up to 8 mm long, rachis hairy. Bracts 1-2 mm long, obovate, concave, yellowish brown, totally or partly villous, tip obtuse to truncate. Stamens 5-10, filaments free, woolly towards the base, anthers yellow. Disk of 2 yellow glands. Female catkin 2.5-3 cm long, rachis hairy, bracts as in the male catkin, but slightly smaller. Disc semi-annular opposite the bract. Ovary ovoid, style almost absent, stigma bifid, each branch 2 lobed. Fruiting catkin lax, c. 5-10 cm long; capsules c. 3.5-5 mm long, glabrous; stipe 0.5-3 mm.

Fl. Per.: October-March.

Type: "A native of the banks of river lets and moist places far among the mountains", Roxb., Pl. Corom. 1: t. 97. 1798.

Distribution: Pakistan (N.W.F. Province, Punjab, Baluchistan), India, Myanmar, China (Guangdong, Hainan, Xizang, Yunnan) Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam.

Tree of wet and swampy places, shedding the leaves at the end of monsoon. According to Parker (l.c.) it is indigenous in sub-Himalayan tracts. Planted in plains of the Punjab.

The bark is used as a febrifuge (Kirtikar & Basu l.c. 2362).