Scandent shrub or climber to 15 m high. Bark pale to dark greyish-brown or black; young branchlets grey-brown, usually puberulous and inconspicuously glandular but sometimes pubescent, angular, often hexagonal, some branchlets usually modified into tendrils. Stipules not spinescent, in pairs, ± linear, up to 4.5 mm long and 1.1 mm wide, soon deciduous. Prickles irregularly scattered along the internodes, up to 2 mm long, occasionally minute and apparently absent, recurved, arising from longitudinal bands along the stem which are usually concolorous with the intervening lenticellate bands. Leaves: petiole 0.8-2.7 cm long, subglabrous to densely puberulous, adaxial gland usually immediately above the pulvinus, raised, up to 2.8 mm long; rhachis 2-6.2 cm long, subglabrous to densely puberulous or pubescent, lower surface usually with scattered recurved prickles up to 3 mm long, a small gland usually at the junction of the top pinna pair only; pinnae (1)3-6 pairs; rhachillae 0.9-5(6.9) cm long, subglabrous to densely puberulous; leaflets 6-17 pairs per pinna, 5-15(23) x (2)3-6(8) mm, linear-oblong to obovate-oblong, often slightly falcate, the lowest pair very much reduced and bract-like, apex acute or shortly mucronate, midrib excentric basally, lateral veins conspicuous beneath, glabrous or nearly so, rarely puberulous or pubescent, marginal cilia usually absent. Inflorescences capitate, forming a terminal panicle. Flowers yellowish-white, very shortly pedicellate; peduncles 0.7-2.8 cm long, densely puberulous or pubescent. Calyx glabrous to sparingly or densely puberulous, tube 1.6-2.2 mm long, lobes 0.6-1.1 mm long. Corolla glabrous, tube 2.6-4.2 mm long, lobes 0.5-1.5 mm long. Stamen-filaments free, up to 8.5 mm long; anthers with a deciduous apical gland. Ovary pilose, up to 2 mm long, on a stipe longer than itself. Pods pale or dark brown, 5.9-16.2 x (0.9)1.4-2.5 cm, linear-oblong, subcoriaceous, markedly umbonate over the seeds, sometimes irregularly constricted between some of the seeds, venose, tardily longitudinally dehiscent or at times indehiscent, apex rounded to mucronate, margins not strongly thickened, mostly glabrous or subglabrous and with minute reddish glands, especially when young. Seeds olive or dark-brown to blackish, 5.5-9 x 4-6 mm, ellipsoid, somewhat compressed; areole 4-7 x 2.5-4 mm.
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