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A herb that keeps growing from year to year. It can be climbing or lie along the ground. It grows 1 m tall. It has a woody rootstock about 80 cm long. It usually flowers before the leaves appear. The leaflets are 3-9 cm long by 1-6 cm wide. They often have 2-3 lobes. There are hairs on both surfaces. The flowers are in groups at the ends of branches or in the axils of leaves. They are in groups 7-50 cm long. The flowers are purple and pink. The fruit is a pod 5-12 cm long by 6-10 mm wide. It is narrow and curved. There are 6-12 seeds. The pods have velvety hairs. The seeds are brown and 6-10 mm long by 4-6 mm wide.
Standard pinkish-brown or dusky-purplish outside, rose-pink or pale cream flushed purplish or yellowish inside, mostly with a rectangular patch of yellow edged with purple at the base, 1.8–2.5 cm long and wide, oblong, median area thickened and keeled behind, emarginate at the apex, subcordate at the base; wings rose-pink; keel pale basally, deep violet or purplish-brown at the apex, very twisted.
Leaflets 3–9(14.5) × 0.8–6(9.5) cm, ovate to oblong or rhombic in outline, usually 2–3-lobed, the lobes oblong, rounded, emarginate or apiculate at the apex, subcordate to rounded at the base, pubescent on both surfaces; petioles 2–8(10) cm long; rhachis 0.6–1.6(4) cm long; petiolules 3–5 mm long; stipules 4–9 × 3–6 mm, ovate-oblong, pubescent.
Pseudoracemes terminal and axillary, sometimes branched, appearing like a leafless panicle, 7–50 cm long above a peduncle 3.5–20 cm long; pedicels 3–7 mm long; bracts deciduous, 2–4 mm long, ovate-lanceolate; bracteoles deciduous, 2–3 mm long, linear-oblong.
Perennial mostly erect herb but more rarely with climbing or prostrate shoots, 0.15–1 m tall, from a very woody rootstock which reaches c. 80 cm in length, usually flowering before the leaves appear.
Pods 4.5–11.5 cm × 6–10 mm, linear or linear-oblong, falcate, 6–12-seeded, ± velvety pubescent and minutely gland-dotted.
Seeds brown, 5.5–9.5 × 3.5–6.5 × 2–3.5 mm, ovoid-reniform, oblong or ellipsoidal, compressed; hilum small, ovate.
Calyx often purplish, pubescent or glabrescent; tube 3–4 mm long; lobes 3–5 mm long.
Stems pubescent or glabrous.
