Erect herb or sparsely branched shrub to 3 m tall; stems strigose to villous. Leaves usually 5-10 cm long, leaflets 5-13, ascending, 2-8 cm long, 0.5-2.0 cm wide, the terminal leaflet largest, oblong, retuse, the base cuneate, thick, glabrate above, silvery silky beneath; petiolules 2-3 mm long; petiole grooved, 3-5 mm long; rachis grooved, 1-5 cm long; stipules narrow to triangular, deciduous to apparently persistent, to 8 mm long. Inflorescences terminal and axillary, to 50 cm long, flowers 5-7 per node, apparently never all maturing fruit, nodes to 50 per inflorescence; bracts narrow, deciduous; pedicels to 8 mm long. Flowers drying 1.5-2.0 cm long; calyx 6-9 mm long, the lobes long acuminate, subequal, 4-7 mm long; petals white to rose purple, the standard oblong to circular, 15-20 mm long, 15 mm wide, silky on the back, often notched at the tip, the claw to 3 mm long, the wings oblong, to 2 cm long and 4 mm wide, the claw to 4 mm long, the keel to 15 mm long, the claw to 4 mm long; staminal tube 10-15 mm long, the vexillary stamen connate in part, free at the base; ovary silky, to 15 mm long and 1 mm wide, the margins thickened. Fruit linear, flattened, 5-6 cm long, 0.5 cm wide, evenly tapered to the persistent style base, not septate but the flat surface often indented between the seeds, pubescent; seeds 9-13, nearly circular, com-pressed, ca. 2.5 mm across, dark brown.
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