Though more prized for its medicinal virtues than its edible quality, this interesting member of the family Rutaceae is, nevertheless, of sufficient importance as an edible fruit to be included here. Young suckers bear many stiff, straight spines. A clear, gummy sap, resembling gum arabic, exudes from wounded branches and hangs down in long strands, becoming gradually solid. It is sweet at first taste and then irritating to the throat. New foliage is glossy and pinkish-maroon.
Mature leaves emit a disagreeable odor when bruised.
Fragrant flowers, in clusters of 4 to 7 along the young branchlets, have 4 recurved, fleshy petals, green outside, yellowish inside, and 50 or more greenish-yellow stamens. It is dotted with aromatic, minute oil glands. The tree grows wild in dry forests on hills and plains of central and southern India and Burma, Pakistan and Bangladesh, also in mixed deciduous and dry dipterocarp forests of former French Indochina. It is grown in some Egyptian gardens, and in Surinam and Trinidad. The bael fruit tree is a subtropical species.