Medium-sized deciduous tree up to 20(–30) m tall; bole usually straight, up to 75(–90) cm in diameter, usually beset with prickles on large knobs, but these often absent in old trees; bark rough, fissured, dark brown to blackish; slash pale to deep pink or red; crown conical in young trees and rounded in mature trees; branchlets usually glabrous, with pairs of hooked, blackish prickles up to 7 mm long just below the nodes. Leaves alternate, bipinnately compound, with 2–4 pairs of pinnae; stipules small, caducous; petiole with or without gland, rachis sometimes with gland between top 1–2 pairs of pinnae; leaflets in 1–2 pairs per pinna, obliquely obovate-orbicular to obovate-elliptical, (7–)10–35(–50) mm × 7–30(–50) mm, apex rounded to emarginate, usually glabrous. Inflorescence an axillary spike 1–10(–12) cm long, often in fascicles at the base of young shoots; peduncle 0.5–2.5 cm long. Flowers bisexual, regular, 5-merous, small, creamy white but reddish brown in bud, fragrant, sessile; calyx cup-shaped, 1.5–2 mm long; corolla 2–2.5 mm long, with short lobes; stamens numerous, free, 3.5–6 mm long; ovary superior, very shortly stalked, style slender. Fruit an oblong pod 6–18 cm × 1.5–2.5 cm, straight, glabrous, dark brown, longitudinally dehiscent, 3–7-seeded. Seeds flattened orbicular to lens-shaped, 12–13 mm in diameter.

Aphrodisiac (root decoction)

PROTAbase : Acacia nigrescens

An ointment from burnt roots is traditionally used to treat convulsions.