Small tree or sparingly to multibranched, slender to rounded shrub l-4(-7) m high. Stems when young longitudinally ridged and furrowed, villous with long curved ± appressed white hairs interspersed with short straight patent hairs and numerous reddish-brown, finger-like, slender glands, becoming woody, ± terete and sparingly villous to pubescent with age. Leaves when young, cano-sericeous especially abaxially, with many yellowish-red glands interspersed among the hairs: when mature petiole and rhachis 7-22 cm long; stipules conspicuous, leafy, semi-cordate to reniform, with one end attenuate-caudate, up to 1,5 cm long excluding apex of 1-1,2 cm long, 0,7-0,8 cm wide, eventually deciduous; petiole 2-4 cm long including basal pulvinus, petiolar gland lacking; rhachis channelled adaxially with 1 large ± stalked, clavate to finger-like, reddish to dark brown, projecting gland between all, or most, of the (4-)7-12 leaflet pairs (glands readily break away); leaflets ovate, lanceolate or elliptic or a combination of these, variable in size, especially in width, (l,5-)3-4(-6,5) cm long, 0,8-l,6(-2,3) cm wide, uppermost pair usually not largest, bases slightly asymmetric, broadly cuneate to round, apices acute to acuminate, margins thickened, yellowish, ± villous, surfaces sparsely villous, dark green adaxially, ± densely villous, ± glandular and paler-green abaxially. Inflorescences 10-15-flowered corymbose racemes in axils of upper leaves and aggregated into ± rounded panicles 10-20 cm long terminating branches; peduncles at flowering and fruiting 2-5 cm long; bracts variable often in the same inflorescence, from cordate through rhomÂboid to ovate, green, pubescent and glandular, each with two stipitate, conical glands in the position of stipules; pedicels, at flowering and fruiting 2-3 cm long, pubescent, glandular except with extreme age. Sepals obtuse, villous abaxially. Petals unequal, elliptic to obovate, stalked, largest 2-2,5 cm long, 1,3-1,5 cm wide, deep yellow, brown-veined. Stamens 10: 3 staminodal (adaxial), flattened ± cordate, ± 3 mm long including short filament, 7 functional (4 lateral medium, 3 abaxial large, filaments 7-9 mm long, dorsifixed), dehiscence porose. Ovaries densely cano-sericeous; style straight, glabrous; stigma hollow, fringed with short white hairs. Pods flattened, straight or slightly curved, 10-25 cm long, 1-1,5 cm wide, transversely septate, apex often beaked, valves dark brown to black, ± soft and succulent, glabrous, sutures thickened, lighter coloured, indehiscent, but 1- or more-seeded portions shed from between the sutures which hang suspended from the plant before breaking up. Seeds slightly dorsally comÂpressed, ± 4-angled, ovate to suborbicular in outline, 4-5 mm in length and breadth; testa dark dull brown, smooth or faintly dotted with a dark line from hilum; areole on each lateral face (i.e. on shoulder or margin), narrowly elliptic, ± 3 mm long, ± 1 mm wide, paler, faintly transversely cracked. Fig. 16 : 14; 18 : 14; 19 : 14/1, 14/2; 20 : 14.
