Tephrosia bracteolata Guill. & Perr.

Annual herb up to 2 or 3 m. tall from a taproot; hairs on stems appressed or spreading, up to 1 mm. long, white or fulvous.. Leaf-rhachis up to 25 cm. long, including a petiole of ± 1 cm., prolonged 1–3 mm. beyond lateral leaflets; stipules up to 3 mm. broad at base, triangular, acuminate, up to 1 cm. long, often reflexed; petiolules ± 2 mm. long; leaflets 17–31, linear-oblong, up to 11 cm. long and 1 cm. wide, truncate and apiculate at the tip, glabrous above, appressed silky pilose beneath.. Flowers mauve in moderately dense terminal pseudoracemes, on stout peduncles often longer than themselves, rarely 1 or 2 flowers in upper leaf-axils; pedicels ± 6 mm. long; bracts very caducous, ovate or ovate-lanceolate.. Calyx brown pubescent; tube ± 2 mm. long; lowest tooth 3.5 mm., lateral ± 1 mm., upper pair ± 2.7 mm., more than half united.. Standard silky brown pubescent outside, ± 16 × 11 mm.; keel glabrous.. Upper filament slightly attached, widened and bent 1 mm. above base; filament-sheath 13 mm., free parts 3–4 mm., anthers 0.9 mm. long.. Style pubescent, ± 5 mm. long, bent through ± 75° 1 mm. above base, slightly widened near the tip, not penicil-late.. Pod ascending, up to 7.5 cm. long, 5 mm. wide, greenish-brown, with short stiff spreading hairs, brownish on the sutures, slightly upcurved towards the straight tip, the false septa between the seeds rather oblique.. Seeds 13–16, marbled, longitudinal, ± 2.5 by 2 mm.; hilum one-third along the side, hardly arillate.

In open country.