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Flowers usually 2–4 on the lower part of a stiff, straight, terminal or leaf-opposed, spine-tipped axis 1–2(3) cm long, sometimes with several smaller sterile bracts above the flowers, sometimes in young plants with longer axes to 6 cm long and with up to 8 flowers and the spine apparent but not conspicuous or hardened; bracts 2–3 mm long, lanceolate or ovate, rounded at the base, acuminate, upper sterile ones smaller; pedicel 1–2 mm long; bracteoles on the pedicel 1.5–2 mm long, linear-elliptic.
Divaricately-branched, spiny shrub, 0.15-1.0 m high. Leaflets oblong to widely obovate, glandular, hairy. Flowers (5-)7-10 mm long; bracts narrowly cordate; bracteoles narrowly ovate. Calyx shortly bilabiate, with stalked glands, hairy. Petals yellow; standard suborbicular, with a well-developed, channelled claw; wing oblong, sculptured, with a linear claw; keel shorter than wing, with a linear claw. Flowering time all year.
Leaflets 2–5(10) × 1–3(4) mm, oblanceolate to oblanceolate-obtriangular or somewhat obovate, rounded to emarginate at the apex, often folded lengthwise, usually sparsely pubescent and conspicuously covered with glands which may be sessile, clavate or stalked and capitate; stipules 1.5–3 mm long, semi-sagittate, attached laterally, basal part rounded.
Dwarf shrub, up to 1 m high; divaricately much branched; distinctly spiny. Leaves with leaflets oblong to broadly obovate, glandular, hairy. Flowers: inflorescence terminal; calyx glandular, hairy, shorter than corolla; corolla yellow; Jul.-Sep. Pods narrowly oblong, slightly curved, glandular, hairy.
Calyx 5–6 mm long, sparsely to conspicuously pubescent and usually conspicuously covered with sessile or stalked glands, divided ± halfway into 2 lips, the upper lip with triangular-lanceolate lobes largely separate, the lower lip trifid.
Standard bright yellow, turning orange or brownish, longer than the calyx, spathulate with a claw about a third as long as the blade; wings at least as long as the standard; keel shorter, obtuse at the apex, 5–6 mm long.
Shrublet, much branched, spiny and sticky to varying degrees, 20–50 cm tall, from a deep taproot; branchlets pubescent to silvery-white tomentellous, with glands apparent beneath at least on older parts.
Pods 12–15 × 3–3.5 mm, oblong, usually slightly curved, hairy to varying degrees, but hairs longest on sutures especially the placental one, and often conspicuously glandular, 4–6-seeded.
Seeds mottled, 2 mm across, nearly straight along the radicular side, rounded on the opposite side, with a very small hilum on the shorter side.
