Shrub or small tree 2–7.5 m. high. Young branchlets minutely appressed-puberulous. Leaves: petiole eglandular; rhachis glandular between the lower of the two pairs of leaflets. Stipules usually small, linear-lanceolate to subulate, soon falling. Leaflets asymmetrically ovate (almost symmetrical in some South American forms, but not in East Africa), (2.5–)4–16(–22) cm. long, 1.7–7.2(–11) cm. wide, narrowed or subacuminate above to an acute or subacute sometimes obtuse apex, minutely and inconspicuously appressed-puberulous on both surfaces. Flowers usually pale or dull yellow, in short racemes aggregated near branchlet-ends. Sepals rounded at apex. Petals obovate to obovate-suborbicular, (1–)2–3.3 cm. long. Stamens: 7 fertile (or 6, fide De Wit) with short straight filaments and subequal anthers, the three lower anthers curved, the others less so; 3 upper stamens reduced, sterile, or (fide De Wit) absent. Pods subterete, brown, beaked, dehiscing along one suture only, 15–27 cm. long, 1–1.3 cm. in diameter, not septate within. Seeds many, embedded in sticky pulp, brown or blackish, subreniform, ± 4–5 × 2–3 mm.; areoles absent.
