Usually a slender vine with trailing or clambering stems; branchlets terete, glabrous or more commonly (Panama) strigose or lightly tomentose, unarmed or sparingly aculeate (Panama). Leaves moderate, bipinnate, the pinnae a single pair, the leaflets only 2 pairs per pinna; petiole up to 5 or 6 cm. long, eglandular, pubescent like the branchlets, sometimes aculeate, apiculate terminally; pinnular axis 1-2 cm. long, appendaged above the pulvinus, usually pubescent; leaflets usually asymmetrically oblong or elliptic, broadly acute or obtuse and briefly mucronate apically, obliquely rounded basally, the costa strongly excentric, stri-gose-pubescent above and more heavily so below; stipules linear to linear-lanceolate, 3-4 mm. long, rigid, erect, pectinate-ciliate. Inflorescence of axillary, pedunculate heads, sometimes few-fasciculate; peduncles mostly 1-2 cm. long; heads ovoid, compact, multiflorate; floral bractlets suiblinear, with subulate tips, scarcely equal-ling the corolla. Flowers small, sessile, whitish; calyx campanulate, minute; corolla funnelform, about 2 mm. long, usually 4-lobed, not striate, usually tomentulose apically in bud; stamens 4 (5?), mostly 4-6 mm. long, glabrous; ovary glabrous or subglabrous. Legume more or less oblong, 1-3 cm. long and usually 6-7 mm. wide, flat, 1-to few-segmented, short-stipitate or subsessile, acute and subulate apically, setose-strigose or setose-spinose marginally.
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