Shrubs or trees, to 8 m tall. Leaves 12-37 cm, (3 or)5-11(or 13)-foliolate; leaflet blades elliptic-oblong, lanceolate, or occasionally ovate, 3-16 × 3-5 cm, abaxially neither glaucous nor papillate, secondary veins 11-14 on each side of midvein, reticulate veinlets abaxially inconspicuous, margin entire, base in lateral leaflets subrounded to cuneate and in terminal leaflet cuneate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences 5-30 cm. Flowers 4(or 5)-merous. Sepals 0.5-1 mm. Petals green, yellow, or white but drying brown to whitish, 3-4 mm, outside glabrous, inside glabrous or sparsely villosulous. Ovary glabrous or with a few short trichomes between carpels toward base; ovules 2 per carpel, collateral. Fruit (including abortive carpels, if any) usually 4-carpelled; follicles subglobose to obovoid, 4-7 mm, glabrous or laterally with sparse pubescence toward base, apex not beaked; endocarp glabrous. Seeds 1 per follicle but paired with an abortive seed, subglobose to broadly ovoid, 3.7-6 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. Apr-Aug, fr. Sep-Nov.
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