Annual or perennial herbs, sometimes woody at base; branches ascending, angular or grooved, glabrous or hairy. Leaves alternate, imparipinnate; leaflets usually 5–27; stipules large and leaf-like or small. Inflorescences 4–20-flowered, axillary, umbellate, pedunculate; bracts small; bracteoles absent. Flowers white, yellow, pink or rarely purple, pedicellate; calyx short-campanulate, shallowly 5-toothed, more or less 2-lipped, 2 upper teeth somewhat connate; petals long-clawed; standard suborbicular; wings obliquely obovate-oblong; keel incurved, beaked, apex acute; stamens diadelphous, all or alternate filaments dilated above, anthers uniform; ovary sessile, style incurved, glabrous, stigma small, capitate, ovules many. Pod linear, straight or curved, 4-angled, hardly constricted between seeds, jointed, separating into 1-seeded indehiscent articles; seeds exarillate.
