Tree 4.5–9(–15) m. high, sometimes flat-crowned; bark brownish-yellow, scaling off in vertical strips. Young branchlets pubescent to puberulous. Stipules not spinescent. Prickles few (often absent from branchlets), in pairs just below nodes, small, recurved, up to about 3 mm. long. Leaves: petiole usually glandular (gland 0.3–0.5 mm. in diameter); rhachis pubescent, glandular between the top 1–5 pairs of pinnae; pinnae 4–8 pairs; leaflets 11–17 pairs, 3–5.5(–10) mm. long, 0.75–1.5(–2.5) mm. wide, oblong-linear, ciliate on margins or glabrous or nearly so, lateral nerves almost invisible beneath, apex obtuse to subacute. Flowers sessile or subsessile, precocious, in spikes 1.5–3 cm. long on peduncles 0.3–1.3 cm. long. Calyx cupular, 1–1.4 mm. long, red or purplish, glabrous. Corolla 2.5–3.5 mm. long, red or purplish, 5-lobed, glabrous. Stamen-filaments 6–8 mm. long, white; anthers 0.1–0.15 mm. across, glandular at apex. Ovary glabrous, shortly stipitate. Pods (Fig. 14/10, p. 52) brown, dehiscent, straight or slightly curved, venose, with minute dark glands, otherwise sparsely puberulous to subglabrous, 6–15 cm. long, (1.4–) 1.6–2.5 cm. wide. Seeds subcircular-lenticular, 7–8 mm. diam.; central areole small, 2 × 2 mm.
