A handsome straight evergreen tree, 10-25 m tall. Leaves 15-33 cm long; leaflets 7-19, 3-12 cm long, sessile, entire or pinnatifid, olive-green above, silver-grey silky hairy beneath; margin recurved.

Racemes 5-15 cm long, appearing on the old wood, solitary, 2 or a few forming a panicle. Flowers solitary, in twos or threes; pedicel 1-1.5 cm long, glabrous, leaving a permanent white lenticular scar. Sepals 1.5-2 cm long, hooded, at first all fused together except on one side, later on, fused in twos basally and apically, free for the greater length in the middle, these pairs in their turn free from each other or slightly fused above, orange-yellow to orange or golden yellow to lemon yellow with dark red inner base.

Stamens sessile; connective not produced beyond the anther cells; anthers about 1 mm long. Disc semi-annular. Gynophore about 2-3 mm long. Ovary glabrous; style lemon yellow, 1-2.5 cm long, dilated at the apex and bearing a greenish-yellow 1 mm long stigmatic cone. Follicle 2-seeded, 1.5-2. cm long, about 1 cm broad, silver-grey to olive green, dehiscent. Seeds 1-1.5 cm long, 0.5-1 cm broad, broadly winged, thin, ovate, non-endospermic.