Climbing or straggling bushy shrub up to 8 m high, often forming dense impeneÂtrable thickets. Stems ± densely clothed with short brownish pubescence or puberu-lence when young, rarely sparsely clothed or subglabrous, armed with scattered ± straight spreading prickles 1-8 mm long. Leaves finely fulvous-pubescent: petiole 3-6,5 cm long, eglandular, armed on the lower surface with hooked prickles; rhachis (8)12-35(40) cm long, armed on the lower surface with downwardly hooked prickles up to 6 mm long, often in pairs especially at the insertions of the pinnae, and on the upper side usually with solitary upwardly curved prickles at the insertions of the pinnae; pinnae 4-11 pairs; rhachillae 2,5-9 cm long, usually unarmed; leaflets 8-13 pairs per pinna, (0,8)1-2,1 cm long, 0,3-0,8 cm wide (in our area), ± oblong to slightly obovate-oblong, ± rounded apically and often minutely mucronate, shortly petiolulate, pubescent or puberulous on both surfaces, especially on the midrib below. Stipules asymmetrically ovate, acuminate, 4-20 mm long, 2-8 mm wide, margins undulate. <
