Perennial herb with 1–few erect unbranched or sparsely branched stems, (3)8–35(50) cm tall, either short and condensed and very leafy, or more elongated; rootstock a globose or ovoid tuber, 1.5–5 × 1–3 cm, sometimes 2, one beneath the other. Stems slender, when young covered with long spreading hairs up to 4 mm long. Leaflets 1–3(4), 2.5–14 × 0.5–2.4 cm, elliptic, lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, acute or rarely obtuse at the apex, rounded, minutely subcordate or narrowed at the base, ± covered, particularly on the margins and the nerves beneath, with long spreading, almost tubercular based hairs c. 3 mm long which do not in any way hide the leaf surface; glands not apparent; main veins raised or impressed above, raised beneath; tertiary venation raised and reticulate above; petioles 1–10 mm long; rhachis 0–8.5 mm long; petiolules 1–2 mm long; stipules leaf-opposed, partly fused, 10–23 × 2–4.5 mm, narrowly oblong to lanceolate, pilose at first, veined. Racemes axillary from upper axils or pseudo-terminal, with the rhachis 1–7 cm long, rarely reduced to 1–2 flowers; peduncle ridged, 1.2–14 cm long, pilose; pedicels 1 mm long; bracts subpersistent, 8–10 × 1–2 mm, linear-lanceolate, pilose. Calyx with long white spreading hairs and yellow glands, 4.5–6 mm long; lobes linear-lanceolate, ± equalling the tube in length. Standard cream-coloured or pale with reddish nerves or brownish flush outside, cream-coloured or yellow within, 7–11 × 3.5–6 mm, obovate or elliptic, hairy but not glandular; wings yellow; keel greenish. Pods 1–1.3 × 0.65–1.1 cm, oblong-elliptic, covered with long ferruginous hairs. Seeds reddish-brown, 5.2 × 3.5 × 1.7 mm, oblong; rim aril cream-coloured.
