Crotalaria podocarpa Dc.

Erect annual, with long spreading or decumbent branches from the base, up to 7 dm. tall, much branched.. Stem terete, sparsely spreading pilose or (outside East Africa) glabrous to appressed pubescent with fine hairs swollen at the base.. Leaves 3-foliolate; leaflets variable, linear or oblong-lanceolate to obovate-elliptic, up to 18–50(–78) mm. long, 3–16(–24) mm. wide, usually thinly hairy at least beneath; petiole 20–45 mm. long.. Stipules very shortly stalked, linear-lanceolate to lanceolate-falcate, 5–17 mm. long, 3–7 mm. wide, acuminate, truncate or rounded at the base, very unequal-sided.. Racemes long-pedunculate, lax, up to (3–)6–14 cm. long, ±2–5(–8)-flowered; bracts filiform, 2–4 mm. long, caducous; bracteoles inserted on the receptacle or pedicel, filiform, up to 1·5 mm. long, caducous, or absent.. Calyx 7–9 mm. long, subglabrous, sparsely hirsute or appressed pubescent; upper and lateral lobes rather persistently coherent at the tips, triangular-subulate, longer than the tube, ultimately reflexed.. Standard ovate, clear yellow, sometimes slightly reddish tinged, glabrous outside; wings a little shorter than the keel; keel bent at right-angles in the lower half, with a long almost straight untwisted projecting beak, 12–17 mm. long, conspicuously white lanate-pubescent along the upper margin.. Pod broadly or turgidly cylindrical, abruptly contracted into the slender 2·5–5 mm. long stipe, 20–30 mm. long, 9–14 mm. across, glabrous, pale with a dark coloured upper suture, 6–12-seeded.. Seeds suborbicular-reniform, laterally compressed with a broad slightly raised rim, 4·5–6 mm. in diameter, with a very small aril, irregularly tuberculate, orange or pale yellow.