Deciduous tree, 5–20(–30) m. tall, with an open spreading crown, rarely (and not in East Africa) a shrub 3–4 m. tall; bark reticulately fissured, rough, greyish-brown to dark grey; slash exuding red sap. Branchlets brownish or silvery-grey pubescent to floccose-tomentose, tardily glabrescent. Leaves up to 22–35(–45) cm. long; stipules linear-lanceolate to oblong-elliptic, attenuate, (0.6–)1–2 cm. long, caducous; lateral leaflets (5–)6–9 on either side, broadly lanceolate to elliptic, elliptic-oblong or elliptic-obovate, up to 5–10 cm. long and 3.5–5.5 cm. wide, narrowed to the variously developed but generally short mucronate acumen, rounded to slightly cordate at base, usually hairy on both surfaces but generally soon glabrescent above and sometimes beneath as well, with ± 10–14 fine fairly closely spaced primary lateral nerves and a similar number of well-developed secondary lateral nerves giving a striate appearance; reticulate venation prominulous on both surfaces. Racemes, or (fide F.C.B.) rarely sparsely branched panicles, precocious or in the axils of young leaves, 6–12 cm. long; axes densely hairy; bracts lanceolate to elliptic-oblong, 5–8 mm. long, caducous; bracteoles near top of the 8–15 mm. long pedicel, linear to linear-lanceolate, 3–8 mm. long, caducous. Calyx 8–10 mm. long, densely appressed pubescent to tomentose outside but practically glabrous on the lobes inside. Corolla golden-yellow to orange, 16–20 mm. long; blade of standard suborbicular to oblate with the sides soon folded back in open flowers, marginally crimped; wings broad, exceeding the keel and nearly as long as the standard. Fruit suborbicular, (8–)10–15 cm. long, with a 1–2.5 cm. long stipe and a broad undulate wing bearing the style basally or basi-laterally, pubescent, also with a mass of long rigid plumose bristles over the central thickened seed-bearing part and smaller ones peripherally, inconspicuously venose. Fig. 17, p. 90.
