A perennial, erect or ascending, branched, hairy herb or undershrub, up to 75 cm tall. Leaves very variable, broadly elliptical to lanceolate, 5—65 mm x 2—20 mm, apex acute or mucronate. Raceme supra-axillary, up to 1.5 cm long, few-flowered and cluster-like, bracts early caducous, minute; flowers 4.5 mm long, sepals lanceolate, acuminate, mucro long, ciliate, wings asymmetrical, 5-veined, green, upper petals spathulate, white, as long as the keel, basal half inside hairy, keel more or less auriculate, appendages filiform, in 2 bundles, filaments halfway free, ovary orbicular, emarginate, ciliate, style strongly curved in the upper half, subapically strongly reflexed, stigmatic lobe inside. Capsule shorter and wider than wings, slightly asymmetrically orbicular, 4 mm x 4 mm, notched, wing narrow. Seed ovoid, at micropylar side with an unequally 3-lobed aril, black, hairy.

PROSEA (Plant Resources of South-East Asia) Foundation

An infusion of the leaves is ingested for cough and asthma. An infusion of the whole herb is recommended for chronic bronchitis.