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Trees, trunks and branches armed with simple or branched thorns. Stipules minute, caducous. Leaves pinnate and/or bipinnate. Leaflets subopposite or alternate, slightly asymmetric, often with crenate margin. Inflorescences axillary, racemose, solitary or fasciculate, rarely paniculate; bracts and bracteoles absent at anthesis; pedicels articulate. Flowers perfect or imperfect, unisexual or bisexual, the plants dioecious or polygamous. Hypanthium campanulate, lined with nectariferous tissue. Calyx 3-5-lobed, subequal. Petals 3-5, subequal, imbricate, not clawed. Stamens 5-10, exserted in male and bisexual flowers, reduced in female; filaments free, more or less equal; anthers longitudinally dehiscent. Ovary subsessile in female or bisexual flowers, rudimentary or absent in male, 2-30-ovuled; style short; stigma terminal, often 2-lobed. Pods indehiscent or tardily dehiscent, oblong or elongate, compressed, more or less coriaceous, 1-many-seeded. Seeds transverse, broadly ellipsoid to subquadrate, compressed, albuminous.
Trees or shrubs, deciduous. Trunk and branches usually with stout, simple or branched spines. Leaves alternate, often clustered, simply paripinnate and bipinnate often on same plant; stipules caducous, small; rachis of leaves and pinnae sulcate; leaflets numerous, subopposite or alternate, base oblique or subsymmetrical, margin serrulate or crenate, rarely entire. Inflorescences axillary, rarely terminal, spikes or racemes, rarely panicles. Flowers polygamous or plants dioecious, light green or greenish white. Receptacle campanulate, outside pubescent. Calyx 3-5-lobed; lobes subequal. Petals 3-5, slightly unequal, ca. as long as or slightly longer than calyx lobes. Stamens 6-10, exserted, slightly flat, broad, with crisped hairs from middle downward; anthers dorsifixed. Ovary sessile or shortly stalked; ovules 1 to numerous; style short; stigma terminal. Legume ovoid or elliptic, flat or subterete.
Plants polygamous, with reduced fls in separate staminate and fertile infls appearing with the lvs from spur-branches; hypanthium short-campanulate; perianth regular, pubescent, of 2 similar yellowish-green series of 3–5 members each, the pet a little larger than the sep; stamens mostly 5–8; anthers versatile, longitudinally dehiscent; pods large, flat, oval to elongate, woody and scarcely (or very tardily) dehiscent; trees with branched thorns (some cultivars unarmed), usually with 2 kinds of lvs, those of the long shoots bipinnate, those of the spurs mostly only once pinnate. 14, widespread.
