Tree, up to 18 m high. Bark usually peeling in large brown papery pieces. Leaves and young branches glabrous. Leaves imparipinnate or 3-foliolate; lamina up to 150 mm long; leaflets oblanceolate, lanceolate or elliptic to ovate, margins crenate serrate. Flowers yellowish green.
Dioecious tree 4-18 m tall; bark peeling in large brown papery pieces or in thicker discs; young branchlets fluted and with a few very short hairs. Leaves pinnate, 2-3-jugate, occasionally trifoliolate, with a few very short hairs, green; petiole 10-60 mm long; leaflets lanceolate to elliptic to ovate; petiolules 5-15 mm long; margins crenate-serrate to coarsely crenate-serrate, apex acute, base cuneate, terminal leaflet up to 80 x 30 mm, lateral leaflets up to 60 x 25 mm. Inflorescence: axillary paniculate cymes. Flowers unisexual, hypogynous. Pedicel 2-3 mm long, pedicel and calyx with a few very short hairs. Disc 4-lobed, not adnate to perianth. Stamens 8. Fruit subglobose, ±14 x 12 x 12 mm, glabrous, putamen smooth; pseudo-aril light red, with 4 arms, 2 commissural arms reaching almost to apex of putamen, 2 facial arms of variable length but shorter.
It usually grows on the slopes of mountains or in kloofs as part of coastal forests.
Occurs in north-eastern Tvl., eastern Tvl., Swaziland, Transkei and eastern Cape as far south as East London, but it is widely distributed in Natal and Zululand. Also recorded from Mozambique.
