Description

Small to medium sized tree, up to 15m tall. Alternate leaves, borne singly or in 2's or 3's, are composed of 3 to 5 oval, pointed, shallowly toothed leaflets, the terminal one with a long petiole. Fragrant flowers, in clusters of 4 to 7 along the young branchlets, have 4 recurved, fleshy petals, green outside, yellowish inside, and 50 or more greenish-yellow stamens. The fruit, round, pyriform, oval, or oblong, thin, hard, woody shell. Inside, there is a hard central core and 8 to 20 faintly defined triangular segments, with thin, dark-orange walls, filled with aromatic, paleorange, pasty, sweet, resinous, more or less astringent, pulp. Seeds flattened-oblong, bearing woolly hairs and each enclosed in a sac of adhesive, transparent mucilage.