Softly woody shrub up to 2 m. tall; stems ribbed, minutely brown strigulose or puberulent, usually ascending, almost unbranched from a perennial base at ground level. Stipules triangular, ± 2 mm. long; rhachis brown strigulose or puberulent, up to 8 cm. long, including a petiole of up to 10 or 15 mm., prolonged up to 9 mm. beyond lateral leaflets; stipellae filiform, caducous, 1.5 mm. long; petiolules blackish strigulose or puberulent, 2–3 mm. long; leaflets 7–11 or rarely 5, coriaceous, elliptic-oblong, often emarginate, up to 2 cm. long and 16 mm. wide, or rarely up to 4.5 cm. long and 3 cm. wide, strigulose on both surfaces, the hairs brown and ± spreading on the nerves beneath. Racemes almost sessile, densely blackish brown strigulose, many-flowered, up to ± 7 cm. long; bracts lanceolate-acuminate, up to 3 mm. long, caducous; pedicels ± 1 mm. long, strongly reflexed in fruit. Calyx densely brown, or rarely white, strigulose, ± 1.5 mm. long; lobes broadly triangular, the upper almost obsolete, shorter than the tube. Corolla densely golden-brown strigulose outside; standard persistent after the other petals have fallen, sometimes until the fruit is ripe. Stamens 5–6 mm. long. Pod straight, subcylindrical, pointed, 15–22 mm. long, ± 2 mm. wide and 1.9 mm. thick, brown strigulose; endocarp spotted. Seeds 4–5, well separated. Fig. 43/6, p. 293.
