Medium-sized, multiple-branched spreading semi-evergreen tree up to 13 m. tall (much taller elsewhere), sometimes flowering as a shrub; bark rough like an Ulmus; ribbon-like buttresses absent.

Leaves paripinnate, drying yellow-green, petiole and rhachis up to 16 cm. long, glabrous; leaflets up to 12 × 6 cm., opposite, 2–3 (4)-jugate, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, tapering from near the base to a subacuminate apex, base variable, asymmetric, glabrous, subcoriaceous, venation closer and less prominent than in X. granatum.

Flowers white or greenish-white in lax racemes or panicles of 3–7-flowered cymes; peduncle plus rhachis 5–14 cm. long; bracts minute, usually caducous.