Common Name : Chinese Albizia, Silk Tree

It is a deciduous tree; 25m high; bark is 5-6mm thick, surface is brownish-grey, smooth, horizontally furrowed; blaze pink; branchlets are minutely golden tomentellous. Leaves are bipinnate, alternate, stipulate; stipules are 2.5-4 x 1cm, free, lateral, obliquely cordate, crisped, orange-pink, pubescent, with filiform tail, base much dilated at one side, caducous; rachis are 18-35cm, slender, grooved above, pulvinate, sparsely minutely tomentellous, with a gland near its base on upper side, pinnae are 4-20 pairs, opposite, even pinnate, 8-12.5cm long, slender, sparsely tomentellous; with a gland in between each pairs or on distal 2-3 pairs; leaflets are 50-90, opposite, even pinnate, estipellate, sessile; lamina 3-6 x 15-18mm, falcate-lanceolate or falcate, base oblique, subtruncate or obtuse, apex acute, margin entire, ciliate, glabrous above, sparsely tomentellous and glaucous beneath, chartaceous; midrib starting and ascending along the distal margin, lateral nerves obscure. Flowers are bisexual, white, in globose heads, 2-6 in axillary fascicles or arranged in terminal and axillary panicles; peduncle slender, pubescent; pedicel 0.5-1mm, pubescent; bracts are stipular, persistent; calyx is 2.5-5 × 1-2mm, funnel shaped, pubescent, teeth short; corolla is 6-10mm long, funnel shaped, pubescent, lobes 5, ovate-lanceolate, stamens many, yellowish, monadelphous at the base, tube slightly shorter to or longer than the corolla tube; ovary is ca. 1.5mm long, sessile, glabrous; style is up to 3cm long. Fruit is a pod, 15-20 x 2.5cm, strap shaped, flat, reddish-brown, glossy, straight or wavy along the margin, very shortly stalked, apices round or tapering, slightly bullate over the seeds; seeds are 8-20, 6-10 x 5-8mm, ovate, flat, dull brown.