Plants 45-90 cm tall, furnished with appressed nearly only white hairs 0.05-0.2 mm. Stems 35-80 cm, strongly branched, glabrous or with a few scattered hairs. Leaves 1-4 cm, subses­sile; stipules narrowly triangular, 1-1.5 mm, white hairy; rachis slender, sparsely to very sparsely hairy or glabrous; leaflets in (1 or)2 or 3 pairs, upper 3 subflabellately crowded, linear to narrowly oblong or narrowly cuneate-obovate and then widest near apex, 5-20(-30) × 1-4(-6) mm, abaxially loosely to rather densely hairy, adaxially sparsely hairy or sometimes nearly gla­brous, apex rounded to retuse. Racemes 4-8 cm, loosely many flowered, elongating in fruit up to 16 cm; peduncle 4-11 cm, sparsely to loosely hairy; bracts ca. 1 mm, glabrous. Calyx 1.5-2 mm, loosely hairy; teeth all close together at lower side, 0.3-0.5 mm. Petals white, cream, yellow, purple, or violet with dark spots; standard suborbicular, 5-5.5 × ca. 5 mm, apex emargi­nate; wings 5-5.5 mm, limbs obliquely incised; keel ca. 4.5 mm. Legumes sessile, ellipsoid, ca. 4 mm, ca. 2.5 mm high and ca. 2 mm wide, slightly keeled ventrally, deeply grooved dor­sally, rounded at apex, 2-locular; valves glabrous. Seed 1 in each locule.

Steppes, stony or sandy slopes; 200-2600 m. Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Hunan, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan [Japan, Mongolia, Russia (Siberia)].