Plants shrubs or trees, up to 5 m tall, spiny, glabrous or almost so; bark whitish or greyish, peeling in papery flakes; branchlets all spine-tipped. Leaves with 1(-3) leaflets, stiff, greyish green or glaucous; petioles 1-10 mm long, lateral leaflets, if present, usually much smaller than the terminal leaflet, only or terminal leaflet elliptic, lanceolate or obovate, 0.6-4.4 cm long, 0.3-2 cm wide, bases attenuate, cuneate, rounded, or truncate, margins entire or dentate, tips rounded to acute. Staminate inflorescences of 2-4 flowers in 2-4 mm long, often glandular cymes; pistillate inflorescences of 1-2 flowers; pedicels up to 10 mm long in fruit. Calyces 3-4 mm long; petals about 4.5 mm long. Fruits ovoid to ellipsoid, distinctly beaked, 10-16 mm long, 6-8 mm wide, pericarps with 2 valves; pseudoarils basal cups with 2 wide lobes over the base of the stones; stones flattened ovoid, 6-9 mm long, 4-6 mm wide.
Commiphora myrrha grows in Acacia-Commiphora bushland at elevations of 95-950 m. Reported for egions N1-3, C1-2, and S1 in the Flora of Somalia, Also known from Ethiopia, Djibouti, southwestern Arabia, and Kenya.
Commiphora myrrha is the source of Myrrh, a gum that is of consderable economic importance in Somaliland and Somalia.
Habit: Shrubs or trees up to 5 m tall, glabrous, with whitish or greyish, flaking bark; branches spine-tipped; exudate colorless, drying ti a hard, yellowish, weakly scented gum.
Leaves: usually with 1 leaflet, sometimes 3, middle or only leaflet 0.6-4.4 cm long, 0.3-2 cm wide, elliptic, lanceolate, or obovate, bases rounded to truncate, margins entire or dentate, tips acute.
Inflorescences: Staminate of 2-4 flowers, pistillate of 1-2 flowers.
Flowers: calyces 3-4 mm long; corollas about 4.5 mm long.
Fruits ovoid to ellipsoid with distinct beak, 10-18 mm long, 6-8 mm in diameter, stalked; pericarp-2-valved; stones flattened-ovoid 6-9 mm long.