Shrubs or small unbranched or sparsely branched, often palmoid trees, 1.5-15.5 m high, dbh 4-10(-60) cm; stem hollow or with pith; bark more or less smooth, brown to mottled grey, inner bark cream or white to brown, underbark green to red brown, blaze straw or orange to purple brown; wood cream or white. Indumentum on young parts and inflorescences dense, brown. Flowering twigs terete, 4-18 mm in diam., grooved, pilose to villose, usually with hairs of two lengths. Leaves (4-)5-18(-28)-jugate; petiole (2-)5-39 cm long, upper side grooved at base, flattened above, rounded below, towards the apex terete; rachis (9.5-) 11-78 cm long, terete, sometimes flattened above, rounded below in lower part and terete towards the apex; petiole and rachis striate, pilose to villose, sometimes with hairs of two lengths; petiolules 0-10(-15) mm long, pilose to villose, sometimes with hairs of two lengths. Leaflets opposite to alternate, usually (narrowly) elliptic, slightly asymmetric, 3-32 by 1-10.5 cm, index 1.8-6.3, red when young, later on dull to shiny, light to dark green, often darker or more greyish above, thinly papyraceous to coriaceous, above and below almost glabrous to (thinly) pilose, midrib (thinly) pilose; base cunéate to rounded; apex obtuse to acuminate, acumen 2-24 mm long, rounded, emarginate or mucronate; margin usually serrate, sometimes dentate or more or less crenate, rarely entire; midrib above slightly prominent to slightly sunken, nerves (6-)9-28 per side, most ending in a tooth, 4-22 mm apart, angle to midrib 45-80°; domatia usually present, small, pocket-like. Inflorescences (supra-)axillary, 4.5-44 cm long, rarely 2 per axil, with long, rarely short patent branches, laxly flowered; cymules dichasial, 1-few-flowered; bracts and bracteoles acicular to deltoid, 0.4-5(-10) by 0.1-1.8 mm, not persisting, outside appressed-hairy, inside glabrous or with some appressed hairs at the base; pedicels 0.5-4.2 mm, articulated up to ⅔ above the base. Flower buds green or dark pink, globular to obovate, 1.4-4.8 by 1.6-4.6 mm; flowers scented. Sepals green or greenish white, inside pinkish, persisting or not, elliptic to orbicular, usually deflexed, concave, dentate at apex, outside appressed-hairy except rim, margin ciliate and with short glandular hairs, inside with some appressed hairs at the base, outer 1.2-4.6 by 0.8-3 mm, without or with a narrow scarious rim, inner 1.8-4.2 by 1.1-5 mm, scarious rim wide. Petals white to cream, sometimes pinkish to deep rose-red, about elliptic to almost orbicular, 0.4-5 by 0.2-3.2 mm, glabrous or with few appressed hairs on both surfaces; scales 2, not crested, 0.6-3 mm long, long-woolly. Disc glabrous or with some scattered hairs to 5 tufts of hairs. Stamens (5-)8(-10), exserted; filaments 0.8-3.2 mm long, patently hairy, rarely glabrous; anthers yellow, 0.8-2.8 mm long, glabrous or with few hairs; in female flowers filaments 1-2.4 mm long, anthers 1.1-2.4 mm long. Ovary 3-celled, hairy; style 1-4.6 mm long; stigma 0.8-2 mm long, 3-lined; pistillode hairy, 0.5-1.7 by 0.4-1.6 mm. Fruits mostly orange, brown when old, obpyramidal, 3-angled in cross section, 3-ribbed, 14-24 by 9-20 mm; wall 0.7-1.8 mm thick, outside rugose, villose, inside thinly to rather densely appressed-hairy to more or less villose, septa usually less densely hairy. Seeds basally attached, ellipsoid, 8-19 by 6-12 mm, testa black; arillode white or yellowish, covering half to almost the whole seed, oblique, lacerate to fimbriate; cotyledons equal, collateral, rarely unequal and superposed.
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