Shrub or small tree, deciduous; bark smooth, grey to brown; young branchlets mostly glabrous. Rhachides of leaves and pinnae in all or most leaves projecting at ends as a short rigid deflexed hook or claw; pinnae 1–2(–4) pairs; leaflets 1–4(–5) pairs, obliquely obovate to suborbicular, (7–)10–36(–42) x (4–)6–31 mm, mucronate at apex, reticulately veined, glabrous to sparsely pubescent with short hairs. Flowers usually on leafless twigs, pale greenish, on pedicels 0.5–5.5 mm long. Calyx 3–5 mm long, glabrous or sparsely pubescent, irregularly denticulate. Corolla 6–12 mm long, glabrous or puberulous at lobe-margins. Staminal tube not or scarcely exserted beyond corolla; filaments c. 1.5–2 cm long, white. Pod oblong, 7–18 x 1.5–2.9 cm, glabrous or occasionally puberulous, straw-coloured. Seeds 9–13 mm in diam.
Range
N1, 3; C1; S1, 3 Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and southwards to Transvaal and Natal.