Prostrate perennial herb with trailing stems to 0.8 m long. Stems diffusely branching from a woody rootstock, mat-forming, sometimes rhizomatous, rooting at lower nodes, flattened or angular, strigose to glabrescent, often with scattered pearl bodies. Stipules 1.5-7 mm long, lanceolate-acuminate, usually broadly scarious at base with prominent midrib. Leaves pinnately 3-9-foliolate; leaf axis 1-18(30) mm long, including petiole of 0-2(3) mm, stipels usually present; terminal leaflet 4-22 x 2-9(16) mm, obovate-cuneate or oblanceolate to elliptic, glabrous or strigillose above, ± densely appressed strigose beneath. Raceme 1-4(8) cm long, including peduncle of 3-22 mm; bracts 0.5-3 mm long, lanceolate; pedicels 0.5-1 mm long. Calyx 1.5-4(5) mm long, strigose; lobes narrowly lanceolate-subulate or setaceous, 2-5 times as long as tube. Stamens 3-6 mm long, equal to twice length of calyx. Pod 6-24 x 1.5-2.2 mm, reflexed, 4-angled, beaked with long persistent style-base, ± straight or upwardly curved, sparsely strigose, scattered pearl bodies present; endocarp with tannin deposits. Seeds 4-7, 1.4-1.8 x c. 1 mm, ± oblong, orange-brown.
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