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A shrub or small tree. It grows 4-5 m high. It can grow 15 m high. The bark is brown and rough. It loses its leaves during the year. The leaves are compound with leaflets along the stalk. The leaves have 4-10 pairs of leaflets. The leaflets are oval and 2.5-5 cm long and 1-1.5 cm wide. There is a gland between each pair of leaflets. The flowers are deep yellow. They occur in large loose sprays. These are about 15 cm long by 20 cm wide. The fruit is a narrow pod. It is 25 cm long. It is constricted between the seeds. They are yellow when ripe.
Inflorescences racemose or paniculate, terminal and axillary, usually with at least some opposite branches; primary inflorescence branches (racemes) up to 5 cm long at first anthesis, later elongating; proximal bracts of racemes ovate, early caducous, with pairs of stalked glands persisting beside the scar; proximal pedicels up to 5 cm long at anthesis; distal ones shorter.
Stamens 10, three large with arcuate fertile anthers 10–12 mm long and filaments 5–6 mm long, four fertile with almost straight anthers 6–8 mm long and straight filaments 1–2 mm long, and three small probably sterile with reniform to subsagittate anthers and straight filaments 2–4 mm long.
Petals golden yellow, unequal, clawed, the two largest up to 25 × 18 mm, oblong, one somewhat asymmetrical, rounded and undulate-dentate at apex, the others smaller, broadly elliptic to oblong, rounded at apex.
Ovary 10–12 mm long, straight or curved, terete, glabrous to appressed-pubescent with white hairs; style 4–5 mm long, terete, glabrous; stigma terminal, recessed, surrounded by a fringe of hairs.
Branchlets brown, lenticellate, glabrous to pubescent, longitudinally ridged when young, cracking and exfoliating when older.
Sepals 5, three larger c.13 × 11 mm, three smaller c.8 × 7 mm, broadly elliptic to subcircular, glabrous or nearly so.
Seeds brown, in a single row, 5–6 mm in diameter, subcircular, flattened, with two elliptic 1–2 mm long pale areoles.
Pod blackish, 10–25 × 0.8–1 cm, linear, straight or irregularly curved or twisted, chambered, glabrous, indehiscent.
Usually a small tree 2–6 m high.
