Noni (from Hawaiian), or Aal (in Hindi), is a shrub or small tree in the Family Rubiaceae. Noni is native to Southeast Asia but has been extensively spread by man throughout India and into the Pacific islands as far as the Hawaiian Islands.

Despite its smell, noni fruit is nevertheless eaten as a famine food and, in some Pacific islands, even a staple food, either raw or cooked. Southeast Asians and Australian Aborigines consume noni fruit raw with salt or cook it with curry. Noni seeds are edible when roasted. In the United States and Canada "Noni" is marketed as a heath food item said to contain xeronine, and is usually sold at high prices as a specialty item.

In China, Japan and even Hawaii, various parts of noni tree (leaves, flowers, fruits, bark) serve as tonics and to contain fever, to treat eye and skin problems, gum and throat problems as well as constipation, stomach pain, or respiratory difficulties. In Malaysia, heated noni leaves applied to the chest are believed to relieve coughs, nausea or colic. In the Philippines, juice is extracted from nonileaves as a treatment for arthritis.

The noni fruit is taken, in Indochina especially, for asthma, lumbago and dysentery. As for external uses, unripe noni fruits can be pounded, then mixed with salt and applied to cut or broken bones. In Hawaii, ripe noni fruits are applied to draw out pus from an infected boil. Overripe fruits give extracts that regulate menstruation or ease urinary difficulties.

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