Shrub, subshrub or suffrutex up to 0.8(1.5) m in height, very spiny, hermaphrodite, highly branched or cushion-shaped, with erect stems, only slightly foliose. Stems and old branches with brown bark, fissured longitudinally, turning glabrous. Young branchlets green, longitudinally striated-ribbed, with 7-10 ribs, villous, sterile branchlets transformed into spines. Spines simple, trifid or pinnate, straight or somewhat flexuous, green, 1-2 cm. Leaves alternate, unifoliolate, without stipules, sessile, with leaflets 5-14 \u00d7 1.5-4.5 mm, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, attenuated at the base, acute at the apex, green, villous on the upper side and glabrous on the underside. Inflorescences racemiform, terminal, dense, with a hirsute axis, and pedicellate flowers, with pedicel up to 1.5 mm, hirsute. Calyx 4-14 mm, \u00b1 villous, deeply split into 2 lips, the upper lip shorter than the lower lip and deeply bipartite into 2 segments linear-lanceolate, ciliate, and the lower lip tridentate, with linear-lanceolate teeth. Corolla 7-13.5 mm, papilionoid, yellow, marcescent, with standard ovate, acute at the apex, villous or sericeous on the dorsal side, subequal to the wings and shorter than the keel. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary sericeous and stigma oblique and introrse. Pod 5-7 \u00d7 2.3-4 mm, ovoid or pyriform, somewhat compressed, brown or blackish, hairy, with 1 seed. Seeds 1.8-2.5 mm, ovoid or subglobose, smooth, greenish-brown or black, without an aril.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-12327","species","type-species","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n