Uses as food: The young leaves can be cooked and eaten, but usually only during famine. The leaves were also used to supplement animal fodder, or mulched to fertilise crops. The seeds were eaten in Melanesia and Polynesia and the people there called it the "food tree". The seeds were roasted before eating. Elsewhere they are boiled. In Java, they are roasted, shelled, then eaten with rice. They are said to taste like soy bean. The raw seeds are toxic and may cause intoxication. Studies show the cooked seed to be rich in oil and proteins and easily digested by both humans and livestock.

Other uses: These attractive seeds have been used as beads in jewellery, leis and rosaries. They were also used in ancient India for weighing gold. The seeds are curiously similar in weight. Four seeds make up about one gramme. In fact the name "saga" is traced to the Arabic term for "goldsmith". In India, it is believed that a person may have as many wishes as elephants found in a saga seed. The ground seeds can produce an oil which was used as an industrial lubricant.The hard, reddish wood is used to make cabinets, often in place of true sandalwood. With exposure to light, the wood it slowly turns purplish-red. It is also valued as firewood as it burns well. The tree resprouts new branches easily and so is not damaged by harvesting for firewood. A red dye is obtained from the wood and used by the Brahmins to make religious markings on their foreheads.In Malaysia and Indonesia, the trees also provided shade and were planted as "nurse trees" in coffee, clove and rubber plantations.

Traditional medicinal uses: A red powder made from the wood is also used as an antiseptic paste. In Ancient Indian medicine, the ground seeds are used to treat boils and inflammations. A decoction of the leaves is used to treat gout and rheumatism. The bark was used to wash hair.

Role in the habitat: The Saga Seed Tree is believed to be able to fix nitrogen and thus help rejuvenate soils.