Description:
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Erect spiny short-lived perennial up to 1.5 m tall; branches pubescent; leaves clustered on short shoots, 3-foliolate; leaflets 0.5-2.5 x 0.2-1.2 cm, oblanceolate, truncate or emarginate, pubescent beneath, petioles up to 2.5 cm long; stipules 1-2 mm long, linear-subulate, recurved; flowers mostly solitary on spine tipped axes from short shoots all along the branches; bracts c. 1 mm, linear; calyx 3-5 mm long, lobes triangular, 1-2 times as long as tube; standard elliptic, yellow lined and later flushed reddish, densely pubescent on outside; wings as long as keel; keel 0.8-1.2 cm long, angular with a long narrow twisted beak; pod subsessile, 1-2.3 x 0.5-0.9 cm, oblong-obovoid to cylindrical, c. 10-28 seeded; seeds 2-2.5 mm long, obliquely cordiform, smooth, brown.
Subsp. aculeata differs from subsp. claessensii with pods 1-1.5 cm long, 0.5-0.8 cm in dorsiventral diameter, 1.5-2.5 times as long as broad, oblong-obovoid to shortly oblong-clavate, distinctly broadened distally.
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