Tree up to 44 m high and 77 cm in diam. Stipules caducous, not seen. Leaves 3-or 4-jugate; petiole 2.5-3.5 cm and rachis 8-14 cm long, slightly puberulous, glabrescent, or almost glabrous. Leaflets firmly coriaceous, elliptic, ovate-elliptic, or ovate, 3.5-8.5 by 1.7-4 cm; apex acuminate to attenuate; base rotundate, obtuse, or slightly cuneate, often symmetric; upper surface glossy and often almost glabrous; lower surfaces rather dull, densely minutely rusty puberulous; petiolules very short, up to c. 3.5 mm, minutely puberulous, glabrescent. Inflorescences paniculate, up to 16 cm long, lateral branches up to more than 5 cm long, both rachis and branches densely puberulous, moderately flowered; bracts and bracteoles ovate to lanceolate, 1-2.5 mm long, densely puberulous; pedicels 1-1.5 mm, densely puberulous. Calyx lobes narrowly imbricate, lanceolate or elliptic, 5.5-7 by 2-2.5 mm, unarmed, densely puberulous on both surfaces. Petal elliptic or slightly obovate-oblong, 5 by 2.5-3.5 mm, fleshy; outside densely puberulous in the lower half; inside glabrous except with appressed hairs on the longitudinal, central part; margin villose. Stamens: united part of the filaments c. 1 mm high; free filaments and staminodes up to c. 10 mm, hairy often on the lower half; anthers 2 (perfect) largest, ellipsoid, c. 2.5 mm long, the others (much) smaller, up to 1.5 mm long. Ovary subsessile or very shortly stipitate, ovate-rhomboid or broadly ovate, c. 4 mm long, densely woolly, 2-or 3-ovuled; style up to c. 12 mm, involute or recurvate, hairy at the basal part; stigma small. Pods purple, broadly ellipsoid or suborbicular, 7 — 9( — 11) by 7-8 cm, flattened, hard, both surfaces evenly covered with scattered, sharp spines (c. 5 mm), beak very short. Seeds broadly ovate or suborbicular, c. 3.5 by 3 cm.
In lowland forests in flat or sloping country, sometimes near the banks of brooks, scattered, rare or sometimes locally common, growing on dry, often sandy loam or clay soils, usually below elevations of 100 metres, but occasionally to 850 metres.
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