Erect, glabrate herb 1-1.5 m tall; stems glabrous or occasionally short-pilose, fistulose, the nodes darkening and contracting on drying. Leaves 5-9 pinnate, leaflets 4-12 cm long and 1.5-4 cm broad, elliptic to lanceolate, apically long acuminate, basally acute to obtuse, slightly oblique; petioles 4-8 cm long, petiolules 10 mm long or wanting. Inflorescences axillary, solitary or paired, short, several-flowered racemes, the peduncles 1-1.5 cm long, slender, glabrous or rarely puberulent, not much enlarging in fruit; pedicels 4-8 mm, long, filiform. Flowers with the calyx 1-1.5 mm long, short-lobed, enlarging slightly in fruit; stamens equal, shorter than the corolla, the filaments short, slender, glabrous, the anthers stout, 2-3 mm long; style exceeding the anthers, the stigma puncti-form. Fruit a white, laterally flattened, turbinate berry, 2.5-3 cm long, drying black and appearing tuberculate by contraction of the pericarp around the seeds; seeds 2 mm long, prismatic.
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