Large deciduous tree to 40 m tall, with spreading crown, often with prominent buttresses. Leaf bipinnate with 11-20 pairs of pinnae, leaflets tiny. Flowers in dense club-shaped head on long pendulous stalk, 6-10 mm long. Each head with fluffy white sterile flowers at base, a band of nectar-bearing female flowers in the centre and dense mass of yellow bisexual flowers towards the top. Fruits 36-45 cm long, green, several hanging at the long of from the end of the swollen common stalk; strap-shaped, usually spirally twisted, swollen over seeds and constricted in between; seeds remain soft at maturity.