An annual vining herb with erect, suberect or flexuose stem, 30-75 cm tall, usually clothed with fine, deciduous, deflexed hairs; vines grooved, 1-3 m long. Leaves trifoliolate, stipules lanceolate, petioles 5-10 cm long; leaflets broadly ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 5-10 cm x 2.5-6 cm, membranous, subglabrous, usually entire, sometimes trilobed. Inflorescences erect axillary racemes, 5-10 cm long, with 5-20 flowers, peduncles up to 20 cm long; flowers bright yellow, 2-3 together, diameter up to 2 cm, with large bracteoles. Pods long and slender, partly falcate, 6-13 cm x 0.5 cm, glabrous, with 10-16 seeds, which are oblong to strongly elongate, subtrapezoidal, 5-10 mm x 2-5 mm, smooth, dark red, green, yellow, brown, black, speckled or mottled.

PROSEA (Plant Resources of South-East Asia) Foundation

The leaves are used with rice flour in a poultice applied to the abdomen for stomach ache.