Herbs, (annual to) short-lived perennial, glabrous or papillose-hairy, ascending to subscandent with leafy slender branched trailing stems 20-75 cm. Petiole of lower leaves 3-11 cm, upper ones 1-4 cm, narrowly vaginate at base; blade 2-5 × 2-6 cm, biternate, segments deeply lobed; lobes narrowly obovate, obtuse; upper leaves smaller and less divided. Racemes long, slender, lax, 5-15-flowered, soon longer than short peduncle, elongating in fruit; bracts 2-9 mm, dentate to lobed; lower ones larger, often leaflike; upper ones smaller, sometimes entire. Pedicel slender, 10-20 mm, somewhat elongating, recurved in fruit. Sepals whitish, broadly reniform, ca. 1 × 1-1.5 mm, deeply circumdentate. Corolla pale to bright to lemon yellow, keels greenish, rarely white, jasmine-scented; upper petals long acuminate, with crest not reaching tip, long decurrent on spur, rarely absent; spur broadly based, 6-8 mm; nectary very short but prominent, to 1/5 as long as spur; inner petals 6-8 mm, never dark at apex; lower petal with or without a short crest, saccate at base, sometimes conspicuously so. Stigma with (4 or)6 apical papillae. Fruit obovoid, 6-10 × 2-3 mm, 8-15-seeded, abruptly narrowed into style 2-3 mm. Seeds in 2 rows, 1-1.2 mm, smooth. Self-incompatible. Fl. and fr. May-Sep. 2n = 16.
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