Woody subshrub, erect, ascending or more rarely prostrate, 0.45–2 m tall; rootstock stout and woody, sometimes horizontal. Stems pubescent, usually viscid, often flowering when leafless and sometimes from very short burnt off stems nearly at ground level, or leaves on separate stems, or inflorescences terminal on leafy shoots. Leaflets 3, 2.5–9(17.5) × 0.8–4.5 cm, oblong, elliptic, ovate-oblong or lanceolate, rounded, emarginate or subacute and apiculate (rarely tapering acute) at the apex, truncate or subcordate at the base, glabrous or with fine appressed hairs resembling spiders’ silk above, pubescent to velvety and glandular or almost glabrous beneath; petioles 2–10 cm long; rhachis 2–15 mm long; petiolules 2–3 mm long; stipules 2–4 mm long, lanceolate, deciduous. Inflorescences of axillary racemes and terminal panicles, lax, few to many-flowered, yellow pubescent and glandular, 10–28 cm long above a peduncle 5–10 cm long; pedicels 3.5–7 mm long; bracts 3–4 mm long, ovate-lanceolate, deciduous; bracteoles 2–4 mm long, filiform, persistent. Calyx appressed pubescent and glandular; tube 3–4 mm long; lobes 6–11 mm long, lanceolate, the upper pair united for one-third to almost their entire length. Standard white, green or pinkish-mauve or crimson-purple, 1–1.6 × 0.9–1.35 cm, rounded-rhombic; wings and keel white, green or partly mauve. Pods 4.2–5.7 × 1.1–1.5 cm, oblanceolate, falcate, the venation ± raised, with yellowish tubercular based hairs and orange glands. Seeds brown, mottled with dark brown or black, 5–7.5 in diameter, 2–5 mm thick, lens-shaped, biconvex; hilum small, elliptic, set in a groove.
