M. Thulin (1999) Burseraceae 2: 183-228

Plants trees up to 8(-10) m tall, unarmed; bark whitish to yellowish, smooth, peeling in papery flakes, bluish underneath; branchlets almost glabrous to densely pubescent.. Leaves with usually with 3 leaflets, rarely with 5, almost glabrous to densely pubescent; petioles 0.5-6 cm long; leaflet ovate or elliptic to obtriangular or suborbicular, 0.5-7 cm long,0.3-6 cm wide, margins shallowly crenate to distinctly serrate, tips acute to emarginate. Inflorescences peducduncalte, pubescent, cymes; staminate inflorescences with 8-several flowers on 1-8 mm long pedicels; pistallate inflorescences with 1-2 flowers. Calyces 3-4 mm long, pubescent; petals yellow, 3-4 mm long, almost glabrous to pubescent. Fruits ovoid to subglobose, 8-16 mm long, 8-13 mm wide, glabrous to pubescent on stalks 3-15(-20) mm long; pericarps 2-valved; pseudoarils basal cups with 2 broad triangular lobes ver the faces f the stone; stones ovoid to suborbicular, flattened. 7-10 mm long, 5-7 mm wide.

Commiphora kataf grows in Acacia-Commiphora and deciduous woodlands, 75-1560 m in all regions of Somalia as treated in the Flora of Somalia and in Djibouti, Abd al Kuri, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, North Tanzania, and Arabia.