Tree (4–)6–12(–15) m. high; bark at first smooth, whitish or silvery-grey, becoming rather rough and darker (when burnt?), slowly shedding in irregular scales or completely to expose a pale grey finely muricate surface; crown at first narrow, erect-branched, finally spreading and irregularly rounded; mature foliage usually glaucous, usually bunched; leaves pendulous, fluttering in the slightest breeze. Branchlets usually soon rusty. Stipules free, linear to falcate-subfoliaceous, 0.5–2 cm. long, usually fugacious; auricle 0. Leaves glabrous, with (2–)3–4 widely spaced pairs of leaflets, the distal pair usually the largest; petiole (1.5–)2–5(–7) cm. long, slender; rhachis (2.5–)3–8(–12) cm. long, slender, not (or very obscurely) channelled, without stipels or expansions; leaflets ovate or rhombic to falcate, (2–)3–8(–10) × (1–)2–3.5(–5) cm., obtuse to acute or acuminate, usually very oblique and rounded- or subcordate-cuneate at base; midrib subcentral; basal fanwise nerves (3–)4–5(–6); surfaces mat, concolorous, both equally reticulate with age. Panicles usually conspicuous, often clustered, mainly on older wood or leafless branchlets (more rarely also terminal and then smaller), up to 10 × 8 cm., pubescent to tomentose with brown or rusty hairs. Flowers greenish-white; bracteoles 4–6(–8) × 2.5–4(–5) mm. Tepals 5(–7), usually all sepaloid but usually narrow and then scarcely imbricate; outer 5(–7), up to 3 × 1 mm., free, shortly ciliate; inner 0 or 1–2, narrow. Stamens ± 10, usually free, filaments 8–10 mm. long. Ovary 2.5–3 × 1 mm., ± densely crispate-setose; style 7–8 mm. long, stigma small. Pod thinly woody, up to 12.5 × 4 cm., pendulous, smooth, blue-black to brownish-purple, ± pruinose over a mat, minutely papillose surface; sutural wings spreading, each 3–4 mm. wide. Fig. 35/1, p. 160.
