Herbs, shrubs or rarely small trees (capensis and pallidicaulis). Stipules filiform to leaf-like, or 0. Leaves simple, 1-foliolate or digitately 3(-7)-foliolate, usually petiolate. Flowers usually yellow, variously marked, less often white or blue, usually in terminal leaf-opposed or less commonly axillary racemes or heads; bract and paired bracteoles usually present. Calyx usually with 5 subequal lobes. Standard usually with 2 appendages at the base inside; keel rounded to angled, generally with a well-developed beak. Stamens joined in a sheath; anthers arranged alternately with 5 long, basifixed and 5, smaller, dorsifixed. Style curved or geniculate, usually with 1-2 lines of hairs in the upper part, the basal portion thicker than the upper. Legume usually inflated, 1-many seeded.