Perennial subshrubby herb, 0.1–1.5 m tall from a woody rootstock. Branches erect or decumbent, densely covered with spreading ferruginous or yellowish hairs. Leaflets (1)3, 0.9–9.5 × 0.7–4 cm, round to ovate-lanceolate, the laterals mostly rather oblique, elliptic to subacute and mucronulate at the apex, rounded to distinctly truncate at the base, appressed pilose above and at least on the raised usually brownish venation beneath, the rest of leaflet surface often glabrous but with scattered small orange glands; young leaves densely ferruginous pilose; petiole 2–10 mm long; rhachis 5–15 mm long; petiolules 2–3 mm long; stipules 8–18 × (2.2)3–6.5 mm, ovate to oblong-lanceolate, often falcate, hairy, closely veined. Racemes with a rhachis 2–9 cm long; peduncle 2.5–20 cm long, densely covered with spreading ferruginous hairs; pedicels 1.5 mm long, recurved. Calyx dark purplish or reddish, spreading pilose and gland-dotted, 5–6 mm long; lobes triangular or lanceolate, ± equalling or longer than the tube. Standard cream, pink or white and purple or blue often lined with purple, rarely yellow, c. 8–13 × 2.5–5.7(7) mm, oblong, often narrowed in the middle, the appendages situated above the narrow middle, often reduced or absent; wings white or cream; keel greenish-brown. Pods 12–14 × 7–12 mm, ovate-oblong, covered with long hairs, short hairs and glands. Seeds dark blackish-brown or chestnut-brown mottled with dark brown, 3.5 × 2–2.5 × 1.3 mm, oblong-ellipsoid; rim aril cream-coloured.
