A tall tree with smooth bark; trunk straight, tapering, green, young branches prickly, usually 5-7 in a whorl, horizontally spreading in all directions; leaves deciduous, glabrous, digitate, 5-9, entire or serrulate, leaflets lanceolate, cuspidate, glaucous beneath; petioles as long as or longer than the leaflets; petiolules very short; stipules small, caducous; peduncle club shaped; flowers pale yellow, appearing with the young leaves at the ends of branches, pedicellate, in clusters of 2-8; calyx cup shaped, glabrous outside, hairy or downy within, 5-lobed; petals-5, oblong, connate at the base, twice as the length of calyx, downy outside; staminal bundles 5, opposite the petals, connate below, filaments shorter than petals, anthers linear; ovary conical, style as long as stamens, stigma 5-lobed; capsule oblong to ellipsoid, fusiform, septa membranous, dehiscent; seeds numerous, pyriform or subpyriform, glabrous, black, enveloped in silky-wool.