Description:
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Herbaceous annual to woody perennial shrub, erect or prostrate, somewhat bushy, 30–100 cm high. Stems densely pubescent to tomentose with whitish to rusty-brown upwardly appressed to deflexed hairs. Leaves pinnate with (2)4–8 pairs of leaflets; petiole 0.3–1(1.5) cm long, petiole and rachis together (1)2–5(7) cm long, pubescent to tomentose like the stem; leaflets 1–3(3.7) × (0.3)0.4–0.7(0.9) cm, oblanceolate to narrowly obtriangular or narrowly elliptic, cuneate to rounded at the base, rounded to emarginate at the apex; upper surface glabrous or rarely the younger leaves appressed-pubescent and glabrescent, the lower surface densely appressed-pubescent with silvery hairs, silky; stipules 5–9(14) × 0.5–1 mm, linear, persistent. Flowers in dense heads 1–3(4) cm long, terminal on main or lateral branches and surrounded or exceeded by the upper leaves, and usually also some flowers in the axils of the 1–5 uppermost leaves; bracts 3–9 × 0.5–1 mm, linear; pedicels 2–3(5 in fruit) mm long. Calyx (5)6–9 mm long, densely pubescent with appressed to spreading hairs, grey, or brown on the teeth; lateral teeth equalling or somewhat exceeding the tube, upper teeth joined for less than ⅓ their length or ± free to the base. Petals 12–18 mm long, yellow or orange to pinkish. Ovary pubescent; style glabrous, with pencillate tip. Pods 30–44 × 3.5–5 mm, lanate-tomentose with grey or brown hairs, those at the margin sometimes conspicuously darker than those on the surfaces. Seeds 6–9, c.2.8 × 2 × 1 mm, blackish-brown, ± ovoid, with a small rim aril towards the narrower end. |