It has smooth bark, pinnate leaves with up to seven egg-shaped to elliptical leaflets, fragrant white or cream-coloured flowers and oval, orange-red berries containing hairy seeds.

Murraya paniculata is a tree that typically grows to a height of 7 m (23 ft) but often flowers and forms fruit as a shrub, and has smooth pale to whitish bark.

[8] This species was first described and illustrated by Georg Eberhard Rumphius in the latter half of the 17th century during his time in what was then known as the Dutch East Indies, and published posthumously in 1747.

[9] However the first formal description was produced in 1767 by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus who gave it the name Chalcas paniculata and published it in his book Mantissa Plantarum, which is an appendix to the 12th edition of his earlier work Systema Naturae.

It is native to South and Southeast Asia, China and Australasia, while the distribution area extends from Pakistan via India, Sri Lanka and southern China to Taiwan, the Philippines, where it is called kamuníng,[14] the Ryūkyū Islands and the Mariana Islands, to the south via Malaysia and Indonesia to New Guinea and parts of Australia.