Shrub or medium-sized tree to 20 m high, d.b.h. up to 60 cm. Branchlets terete, with low decurrent ridges from the leaf-scars, glabrous, inconspicuously lenticellate. Leaves glabrous all over; petiole 1.5-9.5 cm, with one gland, (circular-linear or slit-like, sessile, often with a central depression, 2-7 mm long; pinnae 1 pair, 4.5-18 cm, petiolules 3-8 mm long; leaflets 2 or 3 (or 4) pairs per pinna, opposite, proximal pair sometimes subopposite, rigidly chartaceous, drying dark green to blackish above and light green or grey beneath, ± equal-sided, ovate-elliptic, broadly elliptic or lanceolate, (4.3-)6-24 by 2-9.8 cm, base asymmetrically cuneate, apex acuminate with obtuse tip; principal lateral veins 3-11 per leaflet-half, non parallel, arching, the lower vein but one arching upwards to beyond the middle of the leaflet, reticulation prominulous above, prominent beneath. Inflorescences either ramiflorous below the leaves, or axillary at the distal leaves, puberulous to sericeous, consisting of pedunculate glomerules, aggregated into panicles to 25 by 12 cm; glomerules consisting of 6 (sub)sessile flowers; floral bract deltoid, 0.5-1 mm long, puberulous. Flowers pentamerous, bisexual. Calyx broadly cup-shaped, 1.2-2.5 mm long, glabrous; teeth broadly triangular, (sub)obtuse, 0.2-0.5 mm long, scarcely ciliate along the margin. Corolla greenish white, broadly funnel-shaped, 4-6 mm long, glabrous; lobes ovate or ovate-elliptic, acute, 2-2.8 mm long. Stamens white, 5-10 mm, tube equalling or longer than the corolla-tube. Ovary solitary, glabrous, shortly stipitate (stipe up to 0.5 mm long). Pod yellowish red, pink or scarlet outside, reddish orange within, contorted, (halfway or) completely sinuate along the ventral suture, the segments separated by constrictions, thinly woody, up to 40 cm long, (1.8-)2.5-3.8 cm wide across the seeds, segments 2-2.8 cm wide, suborbicular, glabrous, swollen, veins inconspicuous, dehiscing along the ventral suture. Seeds steel-blue, covered by a bloom, ellipsoid to orbicular, 13-18 by 9-10 mm.
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