H. brasiletto is a small tree or large thorny shrub, seven to fifteen metres high. The trunk and larger branches are fluted and the heartwood is deep red. They have fantastic ridged and fluted trunks that are very distinctive. They are winter evergreen shrubs or trees. Brazilwood also has spiny zig-zag twigs, odd-pinnately compound leaves with 3 sets of attractive heart-shaped leaflets. The flowers are showy, deep yellow, papilionaceous with 5-petals and 1.5 cm (1/2 in) in diameter. A red grow on thread-thin stalks, either singly or in pairs, either at the ends of branches or in the leaf axils. The lowest lobe in the corolla has a distinct, red nectar guide. The flowers are borne on very fine stalks at the branch tips or in the leaf axils. They can bloom virtually all year long in ideal conditions. Fruits are small, papery legume pods that ripen to a coppery-brown color at maturity and split laterally rather than at the vertical edges. Seeds are black and shaped like a kidney.

Mexican logwood is a species of tropical hardwood tree in  the legume family first identified in Mexico.  It is known in its native Mexico and Guatemala as "palo de brasil" or "palo de tinto". The species has an extensive distribution along the entire length of Mexico, through Central America and into Columbia. It grows in a variety of habitats from deciduous tropical forests, to xerophytic scrub and montane forests where it grows with oaks and pines (4). In Baja California, it grows in desert scrub in association with Bursera, Merremia and Pachycereus species(4). In less ideal conditions it remains as a shrub-like plant and develops into a tree form with enough warm weather and water (4).

The logwood is often used as the common name since the species is used to as a source of wood used to make musical instruments (4). The heartwood contain the bioflavonoids hematoxylin and hematein which are used as a pink dyeing agent for coloring cotton and wool cloth as well as toothpastes and pharmaceuticals (4). The species was included in early medicinal texts such as the London Pharmacopoeia of 1740, where it was listed as an effective treatment for tuberculosis and dysentery (4). "Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases" notes use of the plant as an astringent, a dentifrice, and a refrigerant for treating a wide range of ailments from fever, jaundice, inflammation and stomach pain.  By boiling the chips from the heartwood a tonic was derived which purportedly had antibiotic properties and aided in the relief of fever (4).