A large shrub or a medium-sized tree up to 10 m tall, branches prickly, prickles curved, compressed. Leaves alternate, bipinnate, rachis 1.2-5 cm long; pinnae 1-2 pairs, 2.5-8.0 cm; long, leaflets 7-12 pairs, more or less sessile, c. 3-5 mm long and c. 2-4 mm broad, oblong, oblique, apex usually mucronate, base rounded, 3 nerved.

Flowers creamy white in pedunculate spikes, nearly 5-12.5 cm long, peduncle 1.0-2.5 cm long. Calyx c. 1-1.5 mm long, cup-shaped, truncate, or obscurely 5 toothed. Petals 3-4 mm long, oblong, tips recurved. Stamens 10, free, shortly exserted, anthers tipped with deciduous glands. Pods 12.5-25 cm long, c. 5-8 mm broad, slender, pendulous, cylindric, turgid, exocarp coriaceous, mesocarp pulpy, endocarp papery. Seeds 10-15, oblong, compressed.