An evergreen tree growing 6—25 m tall, with straight trunk to 50 cm in diameter and a spreading rounded crown of feathery, dark green foliage. Bark is brownish-black, fissured, but in younger stems grey-brown and smooth. Leaves alternate, bipinnately compound, 8—15 cm long, with 8—20 pairs of pinnae 2—5 cm long; rachis with glands at base of each pair of pinnae on upper surface; leaflets very numerous, 20—70 pairs crowded on each pinna, narrowly oblong and small, 1.5—4 mm x 0.5—0.8 mm, blunt, with dense soft hairs, dark olive green. Flowers minute and numerous in pale yellow globose heads, 5—8 mm in diameter, arranged in axillary racemes or panicles, very sweet-scented, 5-merous, with numerous stamens and a pistil with long slender style. Fruit is narrowly oblong or linear, flat pod, (3—)5—15 cm x 0.5—1 cm, constricted between the seeds, pubescent, dark brown to blackish when ripe, dehiscent along one suture, 3—14-seeded. Seeds are ovoid, 3—5 mm x 2—3.5 mm, smooth and black.

As styptic and astringent (bark)

Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG)
PROSEA (Plant Resources of South-East Asia) Foundation