Unarmed trees 5–18 m. tall; bark smooth, grey, often fluted; young stems with a waxy bloom, strigose-pilose or glabrous, very brittle; slash white, turning purple, ± aromatic but without a noticeable exudate.. Leaves 3–13-foliolate, sparsely strigose-pilose or glabrous; petiole slender, up to 7 cm. long; leaflets lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, up to 8 cm. long and 3 cm. wide, broadly cuneate basally, ± acuminate, the margin usually crenate-serrate or almost entire.. Prophylls well developed, green, up to 3 cm. long.. Flowers appearing with the leaves in axillary sparsely pubescent or glabrescent paniculate cymes up to 11 cm. long, including peduncles up to 9 cm.; bracts linear-lanceolate, usually caducous but sometimes subpersistent, foliaceous and up to 10 mm. × 3 mm.; pedicels up to 4 mm. long, usually pubescent.. Calyx usually pubescent at first and later glabrescent, campanulate on a saucer-shaped receptacle, ± 1.5 mm. long, divided for half its length into acute triangular lobes.. Petals 2–4 mm. long, glabrous or with a few hairs in a central line.. Filaments 3 and 1.7 mm., anthers 0.9 and 0.5 mm. long.. Fruit globose-ellipsoid or a flattened spheroid, glabrous, 12–14 × 10–12 × (4 + 8) mm.; pericarp 2-valved; pseudaril red with 4 linear arms, the sutural as long as the stone, fertile facial 1/3 – 1/2 as long, sterile facial ± 3/4 as long; stone asymmetrically ellipsoid, smooth, ± 8 × 6 × × (2 + 3) mm.
Rocky hills in deciduous woodland or thickets; dry evergreen and semi-evergreen forest and forest margins; limestone rocks; lake-shore thicket; riparian forest; rocky hills with Brachystegia spp.; at elevations up to 1,800 metres.
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