Annual or short-lived perennial, erect and up to 1 m. tall or sometimes with the branches almost prostrate.. Stem openly branched, shortly appressed hairy, glabrescent.. Leaves 3(–5)-foliolate; leaflets oblanceolate-elliptic to obovate, up to 24–38 mm. long, 10–24 mm. wide, appressed puberulous on both surfaces; petiole 16–34(–40) mm. long.. Stipules small or absent.. Racemes rather lax, up to 15–27 cm. long, many-flowered; bracts filiform, up to 1–1·5 mm. long, caducous before the flowers open; bracteoles inserted towards the top of the pedicel or at the base of the calyx, minute, caducous.. Calyx abruptly contracted at the base, 4–5 mm. long, subglabrous to appressed puberulous; lobes subtriangular, ± as long as the tube or longer, sometimes becoming reflexed.. Standard ovate-orbicular, yellow, veined green, glabrous outside; wings ± as long as the keel or shorter, yellow turning reddish; keel rounded about the middle, with a slightly incurved untwisted beak, 11–12 mm. long, conspicuously ciliate along the upper margin.. Pod oblong-ellipsoid to oblong-fusiform, slightly compressed laterally, beaked, narrowed into the 3–4 mm. long stipe, 12–24 mm. long, 4·5–6 mm. across, appressed puberulous outside, sometimes glabrescent, glabrous or with small scattered hairs inside, ± 6–8-seeded; style-base persistent as a conspicuous beak.. Seeds oblique-cordiform, ± 2 mm. long, papillose, brown.
Home