Vachellia tortilis - Israeli Babool

Israeli Babool is a tree 4-21 m tall, occasionally a bush 1 m high, crown flat or spreading, bark grey to black, fissured; young branchlets hairless to densely velvet-hairy, going brown to purplish-black. Stipules are spinelike, some short hooked and up to about 5 mm. long, mixed with other long straight whitish ones to about 8 cm. long. Leaves are double-compound, with rhachis short, 2 cm long or less. Sidestalks are 2-10 pairs, 2-17 mm long. leaflets 6-19 pairs per pinna, usually very small, 0.5-2.5 mm long. Flowers are cream or whitish, in heads in leaf-axils, heads 5-10 mm in diameter on flower-cluster-stalks 0.4-2.4 cm long; involucel in the lower half of the flower-cluster-stalk. Pods are contorted or spirally twisted, longitudinally veined, hairy to hairless. Seeds are olive- to red-brown, 7 x 4.5-6 mm. Israeli Babool is native to Africa, cultivated in dry regions.