Vachellia nilotica

Vachellia nilotica is a small to medium-sized evergreen or briefly deciduous tree of the Fabaceae family, typically 5 to 14 metres tall, with a rounded to flat-topped crown and a dark, longitudinally fissured, almost black bark that exudes a reddish-brown gum when wounded. Slender, paired, straight white stipular spines 1 to 8 centimetres long arm the young branches. The bipinnate leaves bear three to ten pairs of pinnae, each with 10 to 25 pairs of small, oblong-linear leaflets 2 to 7 millimetres long, giving a feathery appearance. Fragrant, bright golden-yellow globose flower heads about 1 centimetre in diameter are borne in axillary clusters of two to six on short peduncles, opening from late summer through winter. The distinctive fruit is a flat, indehiscent, grey-pubescent legume pod 7 to 15 centimetres long, deeply and regularly constricted between the seeds to form a necklace-like outline, enclosing six to twelve hard, dark brown ellipsoid seeds. Native to Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, it inhabits dry savanna, riverine flats and seasonally waterlogged alluvial soils.