Tree 4-22 m high, d.b.h. up to 60 cm, often crooked and multistemmed, flat-topped; young stems, suckers and coppice shoots with stipular spines to at least 3 cm long. Branchlets terete, striate, brown with lighter coloured, transverse lenticels, puberulous, glabrescent. Stipules spinescent, inconspicuous, in fertile shoots c. 1 mm. Leaves: rachis 4-5 cm, short-puberulous or hirsute, sul-cate, with glands at the junctions of the pinnae, elliptic to circular in outline, 0.5 mm in diameter; margins raised, central part strongly concave; pinnae 1 or 2 (or 3) pairs, patently puberulous-hirsute, sulcate, 5-12.5 cm, glands, if present, at the junctions of the leaflets, 0.2 mm in diameter, shaped as the rachis-glands; leaflets sessile, (3-) 5-8 pairs per pinna, usually increasing in size towards the apex of the pinna, obliquely ovate to (sub)trapezoid, the terminal pair obliquely obovate, (0.8-)l.3-3.5 by (0.3-)0.6-2 cm, base asymmetrically cuneate, or half rounded /half truncate, apex broadly rounded or slightly emarginate, both sides glabrous except for the major veins, or lower surface sparsely appressed-puberulous or sparsely hirsute; main vein diagonal, with 2 or 3 prominulous accessory veins issuing from the base at the basiscopic side; lateral veins prominulous, reticulate. Peduncles axillary or, usually, on short lateral branches which after fruiting develop into axillary spines in the axils of bracts or unipinnate leaves; corymbs at least 16-flowered, peduncles 2-4 cm, glabrous to hirsute; pedicel 1.5-5 mm, stouter in central flowers. Flowers bisexual, dimorphic, creamish or white. Marginal flowers pentamerous; calyx ± circumscissile at base, tubular or narrowly campanulate (or cup-shaped), glabrous or sparsely puberulous to setose, 1.5-2.5 mm; teeth triangular, acute, hairy, 0.3-0.5 mm; corolla funnel-shaped or narrowly campanulate, distal part and lobes puberulous or setose to sericeous, 5-6.5 mm; lobes triangular-ovate, acute, 1.5-1.8 mm; stamens numerous, c. 15 mm, tube equalling the corolla-tube to equalling the corolla or longer; ovary sessile, glabrous, c. 2 mm. Central flower(s) usually on a short and stout pedicel; calyx 5-10-merous, broadly tubular, 1.5-2.5 mm; corolla funnel-shaped, 3-4 mm, lobes less than calyx teeth; staminal tube thick, as long as the corolla-tube or exserted; ovary sessile, glabrous. Pod dark brown to black, indehiscent, straight to curved, ± moniliform, up to 20 by 1.9-2.5 cm, breaking up in one-seeded segments, puberulous or glandular punctate, glabrescent, segments ± rounded, thick, 1.9-2.5(-3.2) cm; exocarp thin and flaky, with strongly raised veins; mesocarp corky-woody; endocarp parchment-like. Seeds chestnut-brown with a light chestnut areole, elliptic-(ob)ovoid, 11-15 by 8-12 by 2-2.1 mm; areole elliptic-(ob)lan-ceolate, closed or with a narrow opening towards the hilum, 7-12 by 2.5-6 mm.
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A tree. Small trees have stems that are thorny. Larger trees have flaky bark. The leaves have leaflets without stalks. The leaflets are 2-4 cm long by 1-3 cm wide. Flower stalks are 3-4 mm long. The fruit is a flat pod 10-20 cm long. It is constricted between the seeds and it breaks into one seeded segments when mature.
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