Perennial climbing, prostrate or erect subshrub or herb, 0.15–6 m long or tall from a woody rootstock, to 22 × 0.9 cm, producing a red exudate. Stems glabrous or puberulous or pubescent when young, often flowering when entirely leafless. Leaflets 2.5–12 × 0.7–5.2 cm, ovate, elliptic, oblong or ovate-lanceolate, obtusely acuminate, rounded or even emarginate at the apex, rounded to cuneate at the base, entirely glabrous or sparsely pubescent; petiole 1.5–12 cm long; rhachis 0.6–4 cm long; petiolules 1–4 mm long; stipules 1.1–6 mm long, oblong-lanceolate or ovate. Inflorescences few-flowered, dense, subcapitate; rhachis 2–3 cm long; peduncle 5.5–30 cm long; pedicels 3–12 mm long, occasionally appearing when plant is almost leafless; bracts deciduous, 1.5–3 mm long, oblong-lanceolate; bracteoles deciduous or subpersistent, 2–3 × 1.5–2 mm, oblong-ovate. Calyx glabrous; tube 3–5 mm long; lobes short and rounded, 1.5–3 mm long, ciliolate, the upper pair forming an emarginate or bidentate lip. Standard yellow inside, flushed brownish, greenish or maroon outside, 0.6–2.3 × 0.6–2.6 cm, obovate or almost round, emarginate; wings yellow; keel pale yellow. Pods 7–12 cm × 5–8 mm, margined, glabrous or with minute dot-like scales. Seeds brown, 5–7 × 4.5–6 × 2.5–3.5 mm, oblong-ovoid or discoid, covered with a scurfy scaly indumentum, keeled around the longest circumference.