High climbing vine; stems terete with straight, appressed reflexed hairs, soon glabrous, drying black. Leaves trifoliolate, the leaflets about equal, mostly 7-12 cm long, ovate, apically acuminate, basally obtuse or rounded; lateral pair mostly 4-veined, sparingly pilose with straight hairs on both the surfaces, thin and pa-pery, often drying dark; petiolules 7-10 mm long, sometimes stout, the terminal petiolule articulated near the apex, glabrate, tuberculate; petioles mostly some-what shorter than the leaves; stipels scale-like, 1-3 mm long, glabrate; stipules narrowly ovate, pilose, often caducous. Inflorescences subterminal pendant ra-cemes, the peduncle to 3 m long, slender, terminally fine gray puberulent and minutely angled; pedicels 25-40 mm long becoming slightly longer and stout in fruit; bracts broadly ovate, mostly 15-18 mm long, evenly gray velutinous, often caducous Flowers showy, white, cream, green or brown, often with pirple mark-ings, the calyx cupular, ca. 10 mm long, evenly gray or brown velutinous, the teeth short deltoid, the longest 3-5 mm long; standard ca. 2.5 cm long, mostly enveloping the wings and the keel, the wings 4-5 cm long, darker, connate, apically broadening, the keel 3.5-5 cm long forming a slender tube, but not con-nate along the upper edge, apically sharply bent and indurated; stamens with the filaments united 3/4 way up, the free portion equal, the united portion biseriate, apically curved; ovary ascending tomentose, the style ascending pilose, less so apically, the stigma minute, peltate. Legume few seeded, 6-15 cm long, 3-5 cm wide, constricted between the seeds and undulate along the margin, transversely or obliquely ridged with narrow, irregular lamellae to 3 mm tall, the entire legume covered with brownish deciduous stinging hairs; falsely septate between the seeds, tardily dehiscent; seeds dull, dark brown, convex-discoid, the hilum linear around 3/4 of the periphery, the testa hard, almost flinty.
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