Brachystegia allenii Hutch. & Burtt Davy

Tree 3–15(–20) m. high, glabrous; bark rough, persistent, usually deeply fissured and transversely cracked, pale grey; crown rounded; foliage bushy (see notes below), maturing blue-grey, especially beneath.. Branchlets often rusty-yellow where pale grey epidermis peels.. Stipules shortly connate (or ± free but partly intrapetiolar), linear to falcate, 0.5-l(–2) cm. long, usually subpersistent; auricle often more persistent, broadly reniform, 0.3–1 (–2) cm. long, rarely undeveloped; intrapetiolar stipule-bases persistent but often very short and obscure, subtending flattened and laterally keeled dormant buds.. Leaves with (3–)4–5(–6) subequal pairs of leaflets or the middle pairs the largest; petiole (1–)1.5–2.5 cm. long; rhachis (4–)6–15(–18) cm. long, ± channelled, with or without spreading stipels or short narrow wings; leaflets subcircular or broadly oblong to obovate, (1.5–)2–6 × (1–)1.5–4 cm., emarginate or subtruncate to rounded at apex, cordate to truncate and subsymmetrical at base; midrib subcentral; basal fanwise nerves (3–)4–5(–6); nerves conspicuous; veins very closely reticulate.. Panicles terminal or terminal and axillary, slender, 4–7 × 3–7 cm.; branches rather long, usually subtended at anthesis by pairs of stipular auricles or complete stipules, with or without reduced 1–3-jugate leaves.. Flowers cream-yellow or with rose-pink bracteoles and white tepals; bracteoles 5–8 × 3–4 mm.. Tepals (4–)5(–8), all sepaloid or more rarely (4–)5 ± 1–3, usually all free; outer (4–)5, ovate to spathulate, usually unequal, ± imbricate, 2–4 × 1–2 mm., ± densely long-ciliate, sometimes grading into the (0–)1–3 inner, or the latter linear to vestigial, usually glabrous.. Stamens ± 10, ± free, 8–12 mm. long.. Ovary 2–3 mm. long, densely setose mainly on the margins.. Pod woody, up to 16 × 4.5 cm., usually held conspicuously like a flag above crown of tree, smooth and drying blue-black and ± pruinose when immature, slowly becoming pinkish-brown and finely scurfy throughout when mature; sutural wings spreading, each 4–8 mm. wide.. Fig. 39, p. 183.

Deciduous woodland; dry wooded savannah; locally dominant on well drained sites (more rarely on poorly drained sandy soils); typical of hot, dry rocky escarpments around lakes; also on sandy slopes; usually in pure stands; elevations to 1,000 metres.

Can be grown by seedlings.