Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Climbing annual, biennial, or rarely perennial herbs, glabrous to villous.

Stems: Stems up to 2 m long.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound. Alternate. Leaflets 8–24. Leaflets oblong–elliptic to linear–lanceolate or linear; 8–35 mm long, 1–10 mm wide. Apex acute to obtuse, mucronulate. Base abruptly cuneate. Surfaces glabrous or villous. Leaflet margins entire. Petiolate. Stipules semisagittate, 8–12 mm long, ca. 2–3 mm wide.

Flowers: Flowers 15–30 in dense racemes, in axillary racemes. Flowers papilionaceous; bracts minute, caducous, bracteoles absent. Calyx 5-lobed, usually bluish purple toward apex, conspicuously gibbous at base, villous, upper teeth subulate–deltate, 1.5–2 mm long, lateral teeth ca. 2.5–4 mm long, lowest tooth 3.5–5 mm long. Corolla bright bluish purple, 12–20 mm long, standard with a broad claw, wing petals obliquely oblong, keel petals shorter than wings, obtuse. Stamens 10, Upper stamen distinct or adhering with others, the remaining 9 connate into a tube. Ovary superior; styles flattened, upper part surrounded by short hairs, abaxial surface with longer hairs forming a brush.

Fruit: Pods brown to yellowish brown; oblong; 20–40 mm long; (4–)6–12 mm wide; short–stipitate; laterally compressed; dehiscent; not septate. Seeds 4–5; 3.5–5 mm in diameter; hilum extending 1/12–1/5 of the circumference.

Ploidy: 2n = 14

Habitat: Pastures and dry areas.

Elevation Range: