Chamaecrista plumosa E.Mey.

Perennial herb with one or few stems from a thickened woody rhizomatous rootstock, either prostrate and diffusely branched forming a spreading mat up to 40 cm in diameter and about 10 cm in height, or semi-erect or erect and eventually diffusely branched forming a compact more or less rounded bush up to about 40 cm in height, or erect and simple or sub-simple producing a few willowy branches above the middle to form a spindly sub-suffrutex up to 2.5 m in height. Stems sometimes glabrous or glabrescent, then often reddish to purplish on one side only, usually pubescent to velutinous with a sparse or dense covering of short, curved, appressed greyish-white hairs, or sparsely or densely villous with shorter and longer straight patent hairs either greyish-white, fulvous or bright yellow in colour, occasionally with all types of hair present together. Leaves linear, tapering slightly distally, 23-55(-75) mm long, 3-12 mm wide; stipules straight, narrowly lanceolate, prominently nerved, base oblique, apex acuminate and bristle-like, occasionally acute, surfaces glabrous and glaucous, or sparsely pubescent and yellowish-green, petiolar gland sessile, but never sunken, circular, elliptic or ovate, concave or shallowly depressed, 0.3-0.8(-1.6) mm long, 0.2-0.8 mm wide, yellow or light red when young becoming dark in age; rhachis with an upgrowth of tissue forming a ridge along the mid-adaxial line, this ridge crenate (occasionally serrate) when viewed in profile, the sinuses lying at the points of attachment of the leaflets, rhachis sparsely to densely villous abaxially; leaflets in 12-48 pairs, obliquely linear, 4-7 mm long, (0.6-)0.8-1.3(-1.9) mm wide; base oblique, apex asymmetric, apiculate or mucronate, surfaces glabrous and glaucous or glabrescent and non-glaucous, margins sparsely fringed with white hairs, midribs strongly excentric (towards anticous margin) lateral nerves several on posticous side, present, but indistinct anticously, prominent beneath. Inflorescences axillary to markedly supra-axillary, each a short raceme bearing (1-)2-5 flowers, bracts resembling stipules; pedicels at flowering (10-)17-30 mm long, at fruiting to 38 mm long, sparsely to densely velutinous with more or less appressed hairs. Petals obovate, 7.5-17 mm long, exceeding sepals, bright yellow. Stamens 10. Ovaries densely strigose, hairs straight, greyish white. Pods 30-55 mm long, 3-5 mm wide. Seeds rhombic, 3-4 mm long, 1-2.5 mm wide, testa shining brown with lines of darker dots.