Description:
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Shrub or small unarmed tree up to 14 m high; bark smooth, grey; leaves up to 14 cm long, densely brown pubescent when young and glabrescent with age, pinnae 2-5 pairs with each pinna rachis 2-12 cm long; leaflets (3)5-10(11) pairs per pinna, (0.5)1-3.4 x (0.3)0.4-1.4(1.9) cm, asymmetrically elliptic to elliptic-oblong, obtuse to emarginate at apex and strongly asymmetric at base, pubescent to glabrescent; flowers in fairly dense racemes grouped together to form a terminal panicle up to 15 cm long, side racemes often shorter; bracts up to 8 x 4 mm, lanceolate or ovate to elliptic, falling at or slightly before anthesis; pedicels 4-10 mm long; sepals 5-8 mm long, densely brown-pubescent; petals unequal, the lower and lateral ones 1.2-2.5 x 0.9-1.4 cm, the upper one 0.9-1 x 0.7-0.8 cm, all yellow; pods 7-12 x 1.2-2.2 cm, broadest in the distal third, erect, brown tomentose especially in the median groove of each valve; seeds 1-3, 1.6-2.2 x 0.9-1.2 cm, oblong, elongated longitudinally.
Subsp. rhodesica differs in the petiole and rachis together 5-14 cm, with (3)4-5 pairs of pinnae; pinna rachis (3)5-12 cm; leaflets with (5)7-10(11) pairs of pinna; and larger petal 1.2-1.5 x 0.9-1.2 cm.
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