Shrub or small tree, 2-8 m high, diameter of stem 5 cm or less. Young branchlets densely to sparsely spreading, pubescent to puberulous; spines to 8 cm long. Stipules filiform, c. 3 mm. Leaves distichous or fasciculate with small stipules on short-shoots; rachis (1—)3—6 cm, rachis-glands columnar or stipitate, 0.5-1 mm, 0.1-0.2 mm in diameter, situated at the junctions of all the pairs of pinnae, or spaced above the base, pubescent with minute reddish glandular hairs, usually conspicuously so especially near insertions of pinnae and leaflets and on young stems; pinnae 2-11 pairs, 1.5-3 cm, with inconspicuous glands; leaflets opposite, sessile, 12-24 pairs per pinna, linear, (2.5-)3-6 by (0.8-)l-1.5 mm, base oblique, apex sharply acute, both surfaces glabrous, margins rather sparsely and shortly ascending or appressedly ciliate; venation invisible to rather obscure beneath. Inflorescence: peduncles sparsely to rather densely ± spreading-pubescent, rarely glabrous; spikes directed downwards, 6-9 cm (incl. peduncle). Sterile flowers in the proximal part of the spike with staminodes at first reddish violet, soon turning pale white, 1-1.5 cm long. Fertile flowers: calyx cup-shaped, 0.5-1 mm, with scattered ciliae or glabrous; teeth inconspicuous, c. 0.1 mm. Corolla greenish white or suffused with violet, 1.5-3 mm, glabrous, shortly connate at the base. Stamens 3.5-5 mm, in proximal flowers violet, in distal ones pale yellow with a light yellow gland. Ovary sessile, hairy in the distal part. Pods variably coiled, rigidly chartaceous, blackish, 5-7 by 0.8-1.6 cm; seeds held obliquely in the internal segments. Seeds light brown, glossy, subcircular in outline, biconvex, c. 4 mm in diameter, areole 2.6 by 2 mm, suborbicular; pleurogram open towards hilum, not parallel to margin.
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