The snuff-box tree grows up to 5 m, but may sometimes reach a height of 8 m. The bark of this plant is mottled grey and rather smooth. The young branches are conspicuously speckled with lenticels (a slightly raised, lens-shaped area on the surface of the young stems that helps with the exchange of gasses between the plant and the surrounding air). The spines are straight and up to 50 mm in length.

The leaves are simple, ovate-elliptic in form with a somewhat pointed tip and rounded, broad base. The leaves are dark, glossy green in colour and somewhat leathery and hairless. The margins are coarsely toothed.

It bears large (90 mm wide) showy, sweet-scented, white flowers with masses of yellow, overlapping stamens in the centre. Flowers somewhat resemble a fried egg and in Zimbabwe it is called the fried-egg flower. The flowers are bisexual and are borne at in the base of the leaves or at the end of the branches. It flowers from September to January. The ovary is one-chambered.

The rounded fruit of up to 60 mm in diameter, consists of a hard shell that becomes dark-reddish brown when mature and small, with shiny brown seeds embedded in a dry, sour, yellowish pulp. Fruit can be found on the tree from April to July.