Shrubs or trees, to 20 m tall. Leaves 14-38 cm, (3 or)5-19-foliolate; leaflet blades broadly ovate to lanceolate or less often elliptic or elliptic-oblong, 4-15 × 1.7-6 cm, abaxially usually glaucous and not papillate, secondary veins 8-18 on each side of midvein, reticulate veinlets abaxially clearly defined and dense, base in lateral leaflets narrowly cuneate to subrounded to subtruncate and in terminal leaflet narrowly cuneate to cuneate, margin entire or ± crenulate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences 9-19 cm. Flowers (4 or)5-merous. Sepals ca. 0.5 mm. Petals green, yellow, or white but drying whitish to brown, 2.7-4 mm, outside glabrous or sometimes with sparse appressed trichomes, inside nearly glabrous to villous. Ovary ± densely pubescent between carpels, otherwise finely pubescent toward apex or glabrous; ovules 2 per carpel, collateral or subcollateral. Fruit (including abortive carpels, if any) usually 5-carpelled; follicles trigonous, 3.5-5 mm, laterally sparsely to densely appressed pubescent, otherwise glabrous, apex not beaked; endocarp sparsely to ± densely pubescent. Seeds 1 per follicle but paired with an abortive seed, subglobose to ovoid to broadly ellipsoid, 2.5-4 mm, attached in dehisced follicle to axile strip of pergamentaceous pericarp tissue; seed coat with thick inner layer of dense black sclerenchyma and spongy outer layer bounded externally by a shiny black pellicle. Fl. Jun-Sep, fr. Sep-Dec.
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