Crotalaria polysperma Kotschy

Erect well-branched annual, up to 3–10 dm. tall.. Stem densely pubescent with two types of hairs—mostly subappressed, slightly crisped, with other long fine and spreading ones between—or less commonly all straight and spreading; hairs slightly or conspicuously swollen at the base.. Leaves 3-foliolate; leaflets narrowly to broadly elliptic, up to 3·5–5·5 cm. long, 2–3·6 cm. wide, glabrous to sparsely pilose above, pilose beneath; petiole up to 4–7 cm. long.. Stipules filiform, up to 11–16 mm. long.. Racemes lax, up to 15–35 cm. long, ± 12–20-flowered; bracts filiform, 4–10 mm. long; bracteoles curved-ascending from just below the calyx, linear-lanceolate, up to 3·5–10 mm. long.. Calyx accrescent, 14–20(–24) mm. long, pilose on the tube, appressed pubescent or pilose on the lobes; upper lobes lanceolate, ± 3 times as long as the tube.. Standard suborbicular, blue, pubescent outside; wings oblong, as long as the keel, blue along the upper margin; keel bent at right-angles in the lower half, with a well-developed practically straight untwisted beak, 16–18 mm. long, densely lanate-pubescent along the upper margin, with the hairs sometimes extending on to the lateral surfaces.. Pod shortly stipitate, broadly oblong-clavate, (35–)40–45 mm. long, 14–20 mm. in dorsi-ventral diameter, pilose, ± 70–100-seeded.. Seeds oblique-cordiform, up to 3·5 mm. long, slightly rugulose, with the low irregularly raised areas in concentric rows near the margin, radial towards the hilum, pale brown, mottled darker.

It is a tropical plant. It can grow up to 1,050 m above sea level. It grows in grassland. It is common along the Zambezi River valley.