Deciduous small to tall tree, reaching up to 1 m in height, with a characteristic trunk bearing smooth grey bark and soft white wood. This species is typically deciduous, shedding its leaves in response to climatic conditions, and often appears leafless or sparsely foliated with leaves mostly reduced to the rachis and a few small, remote leaflets. These leaflets are narrow, oblong to oblanceolate, and rarely exceed 10 mm in length. Leaves are alternate, up to 50 cm long, green and glaucous, minutely stipulate, and mostly bipinnate (occasionally 2- or 3-pinnate), with 3–5 pairs of primary rachillae. Inflorescences are axillary panicles bearing zygomorphic flowers (with bilateral symmetry), white to pinkish or pale yellow, streaked with red, and sweetly fragrant. Each flower has five free petals and five stamens of unequal lengths. The fruit is a long, pendulous capsule, up to 35 cm long and 1.5 cm wide, dehiscing along three valves. It is deeply ribbed longitudinally and furrowed. Seeds are large, ovoid, torulose, trigonal, wingless, and white, measuring up to 15 × 10 mm.