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A woody herb or shrub. It grows to 2 m tall. It spreads to about 1 m across. This grows from a large underground rootstock. In the savannah it grows to 4-7 m high. The stems can be dark red-purple with dense red brown hairs but become smooth with age. The leaves usually have 1-3 leaflets. These have a fragrant smell when crushed. Normally 3 leaves arise together. They are fairly stiff leaves. The shape of the leaves varies but they can be 25 cm long. The edge of the leaves has teeth and the tip of the leaflets is pointed. The longest leaflet stalk is about 3 cm long. The main leaf stalk is 5-15 cm long. The flowers have a scent. They occur in loose heads on a stalk 4-12 cm long. Each tiny flower is pink-white with violet-blue lobes. There are hairs on the flower stalk. The fruit is oblong and about 2.5 cm long by 1-2 cm across. They are shiny green with white spots. The fruit become black on ripening. They contain 3 seeds. The outer case of the flower bud forms a toothed cup around the base of the fruit. The fruit are edible.
Leaves aromatic when crushed, often 3-whorled, (3)5(6)-foliolate, often drying yellow-green; petioles 7–16 cm long, grooved; median petiolules 0.7–2.3 cm long; leaflets 6–17 × 4–9 cm, median leaflet largest, elliptic, narrow to broadly-obovate or oblanceolate, rounded or shortly acuminate at the apex, rounded, cordate or cuneate at the base, ± coriaceous, usually entire or sometimes coarsely shallowly crenate in upper half, often undulate, ± scabridulous or glabrous rather shining and not gland-dotted above, pubescent on the nerves beneath, conspicuously raised reticulate beneath.
Corolla 8–12 mm long, gland-dotted, pubescent to tomentose; tube greenish-cream or greenish-mauve, 4.5–6.5 mm long, curved; lobes at obtuse angle to tube, dull pale mauve to lilac-violet or brilliant purple sometimes creamy with mauve or greenish marks, middle lower lobe 4–3.2 × (4.5)4–3.6 mm.
Shrub or small tree 3–8 m tall, or a suffrutex 0.3–1.5 m tall with annual stems from a massive underground woody rootstock; bark fissured, dark red-brown; older stems brownish-red, yellow and grey; young stems shortly tomentose with reddish-brown buds.
Inflorescences axillary, slightly aromatic when crushed, of sturdy usually few-flowered compound dichasia, 5–19(30) cm long, tomentose with stiff patent cream-coloured hairs; bracteoles (0.2)0.6–1.2 cm long, linear.
Drupe 2 × 1.3–1.8 cm, ellipsoid, rounded at the apex, the base not enclosed by the enlarged calyx, purplish-black at maturity; fruiting calyx saucer-shaped, distinctly toothed, pubescent, not gland-dotted.
Calyx deep purplish-violet, obconical, 5-toothed, gland-dotted, pubescent to tomentose, accrescent in fruit; tube 2.5–3.5 mm long; teeth c. 0.7–1.5 mm long, erect; lobes 0.5–1.0 mm long, erect.
Stamens scarcely exserted from corolla tube; filaments with glandular hairs.
Ovary gland-dotted and ± truncate at apex, glabrous; style 4–5 mm long.
Flowers pilose, yellowish and blue-purple in long-peduncled cymes
Shrub or small tree with the young parts densely pubescent
