Plants shrubs or small trees, 1-9 m tall, often several stemmed or much branched; bark black or grey, fissured, smelling oc camphor (mothballs); young stems white or grey-tomentose. Leaves aromatic, shortly petiolate; blades leathery narrowly (ob-)ovate to elliptic, 2-13.5 cm long, 0.4-2.5(-5) cm wide, lower surfaces tomentose, upper surfaces almost glabrous. Inflorescences of numerous capitula in terminal panicles 5-35 cm long. Capitula sweet-smelling, 3-9 mm in diameter; male flowers 12-66 per capitulum pale yellow or cream; female flowers 1-6 per head, white or cream, the corolla persistent in fruit. Achenes of female flowers brown, 1.6-4 mm long, 0,3-0.6 mm wide, with dense, cottony hars up to 3 mm long, crowned with the persistent corollas.
Tarchonanthus camphoratus grows in dry forests of Juniperus, Olea, Buxus, or Pistacia and in secondary bush derived from such forests, on limestone, granite or sand. It is often a dominant or subdominant in secondary vegetation. It grows at 800-2100 m in the N1 and N2 regions of Somaliland and in Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and from Kenya to South Africa.
GBIF records include introduced and cultivated plants. Consequently, the distribution shown often differs from statements about a taxon's native distribution.
