Shrub or tree 3–15 m high, with slender trunk and pendulous branches. Bark ±corky, deeply furrowed. Branchlets glabrous. Stipular spines 1–6 (–8) mm long. Leaves: petiole 0.8–3 cm long, glabrous or sparsely puberulous, mostly with small, raised gland at base of lowest pair of pinnae; rachis 5–23 cm long, glabrous or sparsely puberulous, with small gland at apex, sometimes other jugary glands present towards both ends; pinnae (6–) 12–29 (–33) pairs, 1.6–6.5 (–8.2) cm long, often ±alternately arranged towards centre of rachis; pinnules ±herbaceous, 9–31 pairs, mostly well-spaced, narrowly oblong to cultrate or sometimes narrowly oblanceolate or elliptic, 1.5–5 (–7) mm long, 0.5–1.5 (–1.7) mm wide, ±glabrous or ciliolate, sometimes especially towards apex. Inflorescences simple, solitary; peduncles 1.5–18 mm long, with involucel of bracts near apex; spikes 2–7 cm long, c. 20–50-flowered, pale cream-coloured; flowers usually separated or in clusters. Pods straight-sided or irregularly constricted between seeds, flat except slightly raised over seeds, 3.5–25 cm long, 10–23 mm wide, coriaceous, with ±anastomosing longitudinal nerves, speckled with pale lenticels, glabrous; margins often very narrowly winged.
Often forming groves in grassland or open woodland on plains, in black or grey, often cracking, clay soils or loamy soils; also on dunes near saline tidal flats.
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