The farinaceous pulp which surrounds the seeds is edible. Seeds edible – cooked. A garlic-like flavour. The seeds can be fermented into a strongly-scented, cheese-like substance that is used as a flavouring. The roasted seed is used as a coffee substitute. Seedlings are eaten.

Perennial deciduous trees. Leaves bipinnate with 20-40 pairs of pinnae and 60-100 pairs of leaflets. Flowers in dense subspherical heads 3-4 cm in diameter. Calyx tube glabrous; teeth pilose. Corolla tubular, cleft half-way down, the segments subvalvate. Stamens 10, exserted; filiform filaments united in the lower part with each other and the corolla-tube; anthers narrow. Ovary stalked, many-ovuled; style filiform; stigma minute capitate. Pods downy, narrowed gradually into a long stalk, reach 30 cm or more in length.