Indigofera melanadenia Benth. ex Harv.

Small shrub or bushy suffrutex 0.5-1.6 m tall. Stems erect or spreading, many-branched, woody at base with grey-brown fissured bark, becoming zigzag, densely canescent with appressed or spreading hairs above. Stipules 2-3(5) mm long, erect, subulate. Leaves pinnately 7-17-foliolate; leaf axis 10-41 mm long, with dense clusters of dark pearl bodies at base of petiole and between leaflets; petiole of 1-5 mm, stipels absent; terminal leaflet 4-11(13) x 2.5-6 mm, oblong-elliptic or oblanceolate, sparsely appressed pilose or glabrescent above, silky-canescent beneath. Raceme (2)4-8(10) cm long, including peduncle of 5-36 mm; bracts 2-4 mm long, linear-lanceolate; pedicels 1-1.5 mm long. Calyx 2-4 mm long, densely silky-canescent, sometimes mixed with dark hairs; lobes setaceous, 2-5 times as long as tube. Corolla reddish, back of standard whitish pubescent with dark stiff hairs along midrib near apex; keel apex obtuse or acute, densely bearded along distal midline with spreading whitish and dark hairs. Stamens 3-3.5 mm long; anthers with scattered hairs. Pod 6-10 x 2-3 mm, ± spreading, elliptic-oblong, sparsely to densely silky-pilose mixed with stiffer dark hairs; endocarp with large tannin vescicles. Seeds 2-3, 1.5-2 x 1-1.5 mm, ± cuboid, grey-green, deeply pitted.