Tall climbing vines, to 10 m. Young stems with dense reddish crisped hairs, old stems almost glabrous. Leaves up to 15.5 cm; petiole ca. 6.5 cm, glabrous or sparsely hairy; stipels 1-2 mm; leaflets papery, adaxially clothed with sparse golden silky hairs, abaxially with dense reddish hairs on veins and golden silky hairs on surface, golden hairs becoming sparse on older leaves, lateral veins (4 or)5 or 6 pairs, slightly curved; terminal leaflet broadly ovate to rhombic-ovate, 5-9 × 3.5-5.5 cm, base broadly cuneate or rounded, apex shortly acuminate; lateral leaflets 6.5-7 × 3-5 cm, with width ratio of abaxial to adaxial halves 3:2, base rounded or slightly cordate. Inflorescences on old stems, ca. 8 cm, with up to 7 nodes; bracts and bracteoles very soon caducous; pedicels 3-4 mm, densely reddish hairy. Calyx densely softly hairy and with irritant bristles; tube 7-8 × ca. 10 mm; lateral lobes ca. 2 mm, lowest lobe broadly triangular, ca. 4 mm, upper lip as long as lateral lobes. Corolla purple; standard ca. 2.5 cm; wings ca. 4 cm × 6-8 mm; keel 4-4.2 cm. Legume asymmetric, narrowly oblong, 15-16.5 × ca. 4.5 cm, leathery, with acute apex and persistent style, when young with dense bristles gradually caducous after maturity; both margins with a pair of wings ca. 1 cm wide, both surfaces with 12-15 well-spaced obliquely transverse thinly textured winglike lamellae 3-4 mm high, mostly not interrupted nor branched, some extending onto marginal wings of fruit. Seeds reddish brown, oblong, ca. 2.5 × 2 cm, ca. 7 mm thick; hilum black, length ca. 1/2 circumference of seed. Fl. Aug.
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