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Like T. terrestris but a perennial, pedicel usually 1.5-2 times as long as subtending leaf, petals up to 25 mm long, intrastaminal glands united into a shallow cup at base of ovary, and fruit breaking into 5 segments, each armed with 4(-6) well-developed spines or spines wart-like in appearance.
Perennial herb with spreading prostrate or somewhat ascending branches, finely hirsute with longer scattered bristle-like bulbous-based hairs on all vegetative parts; branches up to 1·2 m. long.
Fruit breaking up into 5 cocci, each usually with 4 (sometimes 6) equal spines, or spines reduced to thick warts, tuberculate on the dorsal crest and often laterally compressed.
Leaflets 4–20 × 2–11 mm., oblique, very variable, oblong, oblong-ovate or ovate, acute or subacute, pubescent on both surfaces or glabrous above, often ciliate.
Leaves unequal; the larger up to 9 cm. long, with up to 9 pairs of leaflets; the smaller up to 5 cm. long, with up to 4 pairs of leaflets.
Petals bright yellow, 10–20 (25) mm. long, up to 2·5 times the length of the sepals, broadly cuneate.
Intrastaminal glands connate, forming a shallow cup at the base of the ovary.
Sepals 5–10 (12) × 1·8–2 mm., linear-lanceolate, acute, densely pubescent.
Stipules up to 10 mm. long, linear-lanceolate to obliquely ovate, ciliate.
Filaments 3–4 mm. long, anthers (1·2) 1·5–2·5 (3) mm. long.
Peduncle 1·5 to 2 times as long as the subtending leaf.
Style short; stigma 2–3 mm. long, slender, pyramidal.
Ovary with stiff bristle-like tubercule-based hairs.
