Shrub, or tree to 25 m high, evergreen. Older stems with thick conical spines; branchlets and/or rachis of leaves with spreading or ascending prickles or unarmed. Leaves impari-or paripinnate, 7–13-foliolate, 12–30 cm long; petiolules of lateral leaflets 3–9 mm long; terminal leaflet with petiolule 3–18 mm long; laminae ± equilaterally ovate to elliptic or obovate, or narrowly so, 4–15 cm long, 1.5–5.5 cm wide, rounded to obtuse, acute, or attenuate at base, entire to crenate, acuminate. Inflorescences terminal or terminal and axillary, paniculate, to 15 (–25) cm long; pedicels obsolete or to 2.5 mm long, 0.5–1 mm wide (their size similar in fruit). Sepals basally connate, c. 1 mm long. Petals 4–5 mm long, greenish cream. Male flowers: stamens 3.5–8 mm long; disc subglobose to ellipsoid or obovoid, 1–3 mm high, with 8 irregular wing-like flanges (best seen in flowers heated in water); rudimentary gynoecium lacking. Female flowers: rudimentary stamens ligulate, to 2 mm long or lacking; disc columnar, to 0.5 mm high and entire or lacking; gynoecium 1-carpelled, 2.5–3 mm long; style excentric; stigma ± flattened or capitate. Follicles single, globose to obovoid, 7–8 mm long, red or orange-red. Seeds globose to obovoid, with thick sclerotesta; endosperm copious. Embryo with cotyledons flattened.
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