Much-branched shrub or small tree up to 7 m high with a somewhat spreading crown; trunk often gnarled. Bark usually rough, brown or greyish-brown; young branchlets glabrous to finely pubescent, some­times festooned with lichens; lateral branch-lets sometimes rigid and ±_ pointed apically. Leaves glabrous to finely pubescent: petiole 2-4 mm long; rhachis 2-8,5 cm long, channel­led above, rarely narrowly winged; leaflets 6 (very rarely fewer) - 18 pairs, usually opposite, sessile, linear or oblong to elliptic or ± ovate, sometimes slightly falcate, 5-17(20) mm long, 1-10 mm wide, often oblique basally, apex obtuse, usually mucro nate, glabrous throughout or finely pubes­cent. Stipules ovate, acuminate, up to 2 mm long, deciduous. Inflorescence a many-flo­wered congested subglobose panicle, borne on short lateral branchlets or, rarely, ter­minal ; branches of inflorescence abbreviated, usually hidden by the flowers, glabrous to finely pubescent. Flowers on pedicels 3-9 mm long; bracts small, scale-like, deciduous. Calyx red, leathery; tube obconical to