Rhynchosia totta var. totta Miré & H.Gillet

Climber or twiner or ascending herb 0.2-1 m long, with slender stems from a tuberous rootstock. Stems glabrescent to densely covered with long silvery or ferruginous appressed or spreading hairs. Leaflets 3 (or in some South African variants some l-foliolate leaves also present), 1-9.5 x 0.3-2.7 cm, narrowly elliptic-oblong to elliptic, round or oblong-lanceolate, acute or subacute and mucronulate at the apex, rounded or slightly subcordate at the base, glabrescent to silky pilose or velvety, obscurely gland-dotted; venation usually very prominent and reticulate, particularly beneath, usually pale and yellowish, at least in dried specimens, particularly above; petiole 0.7-3 cm long; rhachis 1-6 mm long; petiolules 0.5-1.5 mm long; stipules 2.5-6 x 0.5-2 mm, lanceolate. Flowers solitary to few in very lax inflorescences; peduncle 1.3-3.5 cm long; true pedicels 2-4 mm long; bracts c. 1-5 x 0.5 mm, ovate or lanceolate. Calyx pubescent to silky pilose; tube 2 mm long; lobes 2.5-8 mm long, lanceolate, the lowest usually the longest, the upper pair joined for ± half their length. Standard yellow, flushed reddish, 7-12(14) x 6-8.5 mm, obovate, glabrous or rarely pubescent; wings yellow; keel greenish-yellow. Pods 15-37 x 5-8 mm, falcate-oblanceolate, narrowed below, apiculate, covered with rather long and shorter pubescence or silky pilose. Seeds dark red, mottled black to ± entirely black, 3-4.5 x 2-3.5 mm, reniform.