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Senegalia asak (Forssk.) Kyal. & Boatwr.

Mimosa asak Forssk., Acacia asak (Forssk.) Willd.

Eng.: Acacia, wait-a-bit thorn.   Spa.: Acacia.   Fre.: Acacia.

Shrub or tree up to 6(10) m in height, prickly, hermaphrodite, deciduous, multi-stemmed and with branches extended or with the trunk prolonged into a flat umbrella-shaped crown. Main stems and branches with fissured bark, reddish or brown-purple. Young branches with yellowish-green, smooth bark, glabrous, which peels. Prickles in groups of 3 at the nodes, the central one hook-shaped and the lateral ones ± patent or curved upwards, but sometimes missing. Leaves up to 8 cm, alternate, bipinnate, glabrous or sparsely hairy, with petiole with a gland towards the base, and 3-6 pairs of pinnae, each with 7-20 pairs of leaflets 3-9 × 1.25-3.75 mm, oblong, rounded at the tip and the base, subsessile, light green or glaucous, glabrous or sometimes slightly hairy on the underside. Inflorescences spiciform, up to 4-11 cm long, white or whitish-yellow, solitary or in fascicles of 2-3, with glabrous or sparsely hairy rachis, and numerous minute flowers. Calyx 1.5-2 mm, campanulate, greenish, glabrous, with 5 triangular teeth. Corolla 2.5-3 mm, tubular-campanulate, with 5 oblong petals, white or cream, glabrous. Stamens numerous, slightly fused at the base, with white or whitish-yellow filament. Pod (2.8)3.8-12 cm × (9)11-15(18) mm, linear-oblong, straight or slightly curved, pendulous, not constricted between the seeds, highly compressed, apex ± rounded, brown, reddish-brown or purple, inconspicuously veined, glabrous or somewhat puberulous towards the base, dehiscent. Seeds c. 9 mm, suborbicular, compressed, greyish brown, with a horseshoe-shaped pleurogram, smooth.