The gum from the bark of Vachellia seyal is edible. The inner bark fibre has a sweet taste and is chewed to make ropes. The gum is used in the treatment of colds and diarrhoea. It has good firewood with pleasant smell. It has also been an important item of export together with Senegalia senegal (Arabic Gum).

In NOvember 2021, the IUCN rated Vachellia seyal "LC". meaning it is of least concern. Despite that, pastoralists in Somaliland consider its decling populations to be of great concern.

Thulin, M (1993) Fabaceae in Flora of Somalia 1: 341-465

Plants trees up to 9 m tall, with flattened crowns; bark on trunk powdery, whie to greenish yellow or orange-red; young branchlets almost glabrous, epidermis reddish, conspicuously flaking off to expose a geyish or reddish powdery under-surface. Stipular spines up to 8 cm long, sometimes basally inflated and fused into "ant galls". Leaves with 3-7 pairs of pinnae; leafelets 11-20 pairs, 3-8 mm wide.

Vachellia seyal is represented by Vachellia seyal var. fistula (Schweinf.) Oliv. It always has some pairs of stipular spines that are paired at the base and the bark is mostly white for greenish-yellow rather than orange red. I grows in woodland and wooded grassland at 1150-1200 m.  It is known from region N1 of the Flora of Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, and southwards to Malawi and Mozambique.

©Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Reproduced with permission.

Vachleiia seyal is an evergreen tree that grows to 10-15m tal. The rusty-coloured, powdered bark is a characteristic feature of the tree. This is where its Somali name Waadhi (creamcoloured) originates from. It is not as common or as widespread as other species of Vachellia.