There is only one species, Schleichera oleosa, a tree that occurs in the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia.

It is a large deciduous (nearly evergreen) tree with a comparatively short fluted trunk and a shade spreading crown.

It is irregular or ellipsoidal in shape, slightly compressed, and has a thick brown seed coat on its surface.

This tree grows naturally from the foothills of the Himalayas and the western Deccan Plateau, east to Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

[9] The German-Dutch botanist Georg Eberhard Rumphius, who lived for 45 years in Ambon, called this tree Cussambium.

[10] In India it is mostly known as Kusum (कुसुम) and was one of the main trees of undisturbed forests in Madhya Pradesh and the Deccan Plateau.