Unarmed or armed trees or shrubs with prickles, axillary spines or spinescent stipules. Leaves bipinnate, pinnae 1-2 pairs, leaflets few or many paired; stipules small, or absent. Petiolar or jugal glands small or obscure. Inflorescence axillary cylindric spike or globose heads. Flowers 5-merous. Calyx shortly dentate. Petals connate below the middle. Stamens 10, free, anthers with or without a deciduous gland. Ovary sessile or stipitate, ovules numerous. Fruit linear, thick and compres¬sed, straight or falcate, indehiscent, mesocarp spongy. Seeds ovate, compressed.