More or less erect or straggling shrub 0·6–1·5 m. tall; rootstock with large cylindrical tubers up to 60 cm. long.. Stems rather stout, hirsute with whitish or ferruginous hairs, usually covered with stipules which persist even after the side branches and flowering shoots have dropped off.. Leaflets 3, ovate or ovate-oblong in outline, 1·5–8·5 cm. long, 0·8–5 cm. wide, acute or shortly acuminate at the apex, rounded at the base, the terminal ones 3-lobed, the laterals lobed on their outer sides, margins crenate, hairy on both surfaces and densely covered with orange glands beneath; venation prominent beneath, the leaflet-surface sometimes bullate above; petiole 1·5–7·5 cm. long; rhachis 0·3–1·7 cm. long; petiolules 2 mm. long; stipules persistent and scarious, ovate to lanceolate, 0·8–1·2 cm. long, 2·5–4 mm. wide, veined, pubescent.. Flowers often developing just before the leaves expand; inflorescences axillary, sometimes aggregated at the apices of the shoots, occasionally branched at the base; rhachis 10–14 cm. long; peduncle 2–6 cm. long; pedicels 3–4 mm. long; bracts lanceolate, 4 mm. long, 1–2 mm. wide.. Calyx hairy and with golden or orange glands; tube 4–5 mm. long; lobes narrowly triangular, 3–4 mm. long, the upper pair shortest, joined for half their length.. Standard cream or yellow with extensive purple-brown veining, broadly elliptic, 1·4–2 cm. long, 1·2–1·6 cm. wide, glabrous.. Pods pale with purple reticulation, falcate, 2·8–3·5 cm. long, 7–8·5 mm. wide, acute at the apex, narrowed to the base, pubescent with whitish tangled hairs, also with orange-red glands and scattered yellow glandular hairs.. Seeds brown, mottled grey and black, oblong-reniform, longest dimension 5·5–6 mm., shorter dimension 4 mm., 2·5 mm. thick.. Fig. 109/23, p. 716.
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