Perennial, up to 50 cm tall with woody base, branched from below, more or less densely glandular all over, more so in the upper parts. Leaves simple, ovate-elliptic, petiolate, entire, basal sometimes forming a rosette; blade 10-40 mm long, 7-20 mm broad, glandular, more or less 3-nerved, fleshy, petiole 1-2 (-4) cm long in the lower leaves, much shorter in the upper leaves, glandular hairy. Inflorescence 20-30-flowered, bracteate below, increasing up to 30 cm in length in fruit. Flowers 6-7 mm across, deep yellowish-brown; pedicel 10-15 mm long, becoming horizontal in fruit, thin, glandular. Sepals 1-1.5 mm long, 0.7 mm broad, more or less triangu¬lar, densely papillose or glandular. Petals 5-7 mm long, 2-3 mm broad, blade broadly ovate or suborbicular with very short claw, usually dark-veined, apex more or less obtuse. Stamens 6, about as long as the petals. Fruit 20-40 (-45) mm long, (3-) 4-6 (-8) mm wide, oblong-linear, abruptly ending into a style (not narrowed towards the apex) very variable in length and breadth, pendulus, compressed, sparsely glandular, valves somewhat thin with reticulate veins and clearly indicating more or less two rows of comparatively larger seeds; stipe 12-(-4) mm long; style about 1 mm long; seeds many, about 2 mm in diam., densely hairy (hairs easily removeable or falling off).

Type: W. Pakistan, Baluchistan, Sibi, Bugti hills, Vicary (K).

Cleome rupicola differs from Cleome oxypetala and Cleome glaucescens in its all over glandular Indumentum and broader, ovate or suborbicular, obtuse petal blade and often shorter fruits with thinner walls.