Description:
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Low bushy herb or small shrub 20-80 cm tall with a well-developed system of branches covered in a tomentum of short ± appressed to long fine mostly spreading hairs; leaves rather closely arranged, estipulate, sessile, 3-foliolate; leaflets 6-20 x 1.5-6(8) mm, oblanceolate to narrowly elliptic-oblong, pointed, with the margins flat or slightly inrolled, appressed to spreading pilose, pedicels mostly 1-3 mm long; flowers numerous, solitary or in small very shortly stalked terminal clusters; bracts 2-4 mm long, linear to linear-lanceolate; bracteoles at the top of the short pedicel; calyx 4.5-6 mm long, densely hairy, lobes narrowly attenuate-triangular to oblong-triangular, c. 3 times as long as tube; standard broadly elliptic or obovate-elliptic, yellow, often tinged reddish or purplish veined, sericeous towards the apex outside; wings exceeding the keel; keel 3.5-5 mm long, abruptly rounded with a short straight or slightly incurved pointed beak; pod ± sessile, 5-7 mm long, shortly ovoid-ellipsoid to oblong-ellipsoid, hairy, 2-4 seeded; seeds c. 3 mm long, obliquely oblong-cordiform, smooth.
Leaflet characteristics separate subsp. cistoides (leaflets oblanceolate with shortly rounded to apiculate tip, generally flat margins, often appressed pilose and pedicels rarely more than 1 mm long) from subsp. orientalis (leaflets narrowly elliptic-oblong with pointed tip, inrolled margins, spreading pilose and pedicels mostly 2-3 mm long).
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