Description:

• Tall trees with rounded crown and spreading branches; stipules spinescent, in pairs, straight or slightly curved, greenish white with reddish brown tips when young
• Leaves with adaxial gland 0; rachis subglabrous or puberulous, with a single conspicuous gland at junction of each of 2-10 pairs of pinnae; leaflets grey-green, 6-23 pairs per pinna, linear or linear-oblong to slightly ovate-oblong, apex rounded or subacute or mucronate
• Inflorescence spicate, usually singly in axil of a leaf
• Flowers bisexual, yellowish white to pale cream-coloured, sessile or minutely pedicellate
• Calyx campanulate, 4- or 5-lobed or -toothed, glabrous to pubescent
• Corolla 4- or 5-lobed, often a delicate pink inside basally, lobes divided almost to base, glabrous to pubescent
• Stamens many; filaments shortly united into a tube at base; anthers eglandular
• Ovary shortly stipitate, pilose; style glabrous or subglabrous
• Pod bright orange to reddish brown, falcate or curled into a circular coil or variously twisted, indehiscent, thick, glabrous or very rarely puberulous
• Seeds light to dark brown, elliptic-lenticular

Nomenclature:

• Faidherbia A.Chev.
  • Chevalier: 876 (1934)
  • Vassal: 170 (1981)
• Acacia Mill. in part
  • Ross: 44 (1975)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 1: Faidherbia albida (Del.) A.Chev., widespread in tropical and subtropical Africa
• Southern Africa: Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province, Mpumalanga and N KwaZulu-Natal