Botany
Kalayo is a shrub or small tree, with a compact, bushy crown. All parts are covered with hairs. Leaves are pinnate, 15 to 50 centimeters long, with 4 to 6 pairs of leaflets. Leaflets are narrowly elliptic, 7.5 to 18 centimeters long, 3 to 7 centimeters wide, and blunt on both ends. Flowers are very fragrant, white, about 5 millimeters wide, and arranged in small groups in upright panicles 12 to 30 centimeters long. Fruit is about 1 centimeter long and covered with fine hairs; in ripening it turns successfully yellow, orange, purple, and nearly black, and when ripe, with a thin, juicy, sweetish and slightly astringent pulp.

Distribution
- Common in forests at low and medium altitudes throughout the Philippines.
- Also occurs from northern India to Indo-China and Thailand, through Malaya to tropical Australia.

Properties
- Roots are astringent.
- Roots and leaves considered febrifugal.

Parts used
Roots, leaves and seeds.

Uses
Edibility
Fruit is edible, but for some, not a pleasant edibility.
In Java, shoots are used as vegetable.
Folkloric
- Astringent roots are used as decoction for fevers.
- Malays apply a poutice of leaves and roots to the head during a fever and to the body for skin problems.
- In the Dutch Indies, leaves are used for poulticing.
- Decoction of seeds used for whooping cough.

Availability
Wild-crafted.