Shrub or small tree up to 5 m in height, prickly, hermaphrodite, deciduous, with short trunk and extended lax branches. Stems and main branches with smooth bark, only slightly fissured, light grey, which does not peel. Young branches herbaceous, glabrous or hairy. Prickles 3-6 mm, in groups of 2 at the nodes \u2014rarely 3\u2014, hooked, reddish-brown to blackish, asymmetric, rarely reduced or missing. Leaves up to 8 cm, alternate, bipinnate, glaucous, with filiform stipules promptly caducous, petiole 8-12 mm, with a gland towards the middle, petiole and rachis glabrous or pubescent, and with 2-3 pairs of pinnae, each with 3-5(7) pairs of leaflets 6-12 \u00d7 3-6 mm, elliptical, oblong or oblong-obovate, rounded at the tip and the base, subsessile, green on the upper side and glaucous on the underside, glabrous or sometimes sparsely ciliate. Inflorescences spiciform, 3-8 cm long, white or whitish-yellow, solitary or in groups of 2-3, peduncle short, with glabrous or slightly hairy rachis, and numerous minute flowers. Calyx 1.5-2 mm, campanulate, greenish, with 5 teeth wider than long, rounded, scarious-whitish in the margin, glabrous or ciliolate at the apex. Corolla 3-3.5 mm, with 5 petals fused at much of their base, ovate-lanceolate, acute, white or whitish-yellow, ciliolate at the tip. Stamens numerous, slightly fused at the base, with white filament. Pod (4)5-8 cm \u00d7 (15)20-25(28) mm, linear-oblong, pendulous, not constricted between the seeds except for being sometimes slightly constricted at the height of the aborted seeds, highly compressed, obtuse or apiculate at the tip and attenuated at the base, straw yellow in colour, slender and laxly pubescent \u2014turning glabrous\u2014, eventually dehiscent, with 2-3(5) seeds. Seeds 8-10 mm in diameter, suborbicular, highly compressed, an olive brown, with a dark horseshoe-shaped pleurogram, smooth, shiny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-12282","species","type-species","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n