Ascending or decumbent annual herb; stems many, 5–25 cm long, branching mainly from lower parts, terete or furrowed, glabrous to sparsely hairy. Leaves palmately trifoliolate, long-petiolate; leaflets obovate to oblong-cuneate, 4–15 mm long, 2–10 mm wide, wholly glabrous or sparsely hairy beneath, margins acutely dentate, apex rounded, truncate or retuse; stipules membranous, connate in lower half. Inflorescence many-flowered, axillary, umbellate, 6–12 mm long, 5–8 mm wide, sessile or pedunculate; flowers shortly pedicellate, erect or deflexed after anthesis. Calyx at first c. 3.5 mm long, much inflated in fruit, hairy on upper side, tube cylindric, faintly 10-veined becoming reticulately veined in fruit, upper lip much inflated, woolly-pilose or glabrescent, throat narrowed or closed in fruit, hairy, teeth unequal, much shorter than tube, blunt, upper teeth spreading or curved in fruit (when usually obscured by hairs), lower 3 teeth longer than upper 2; corolla 3–6 mm long, resupinate, pink, not persistent; standard ovate, notched at apex. Pod ovoid, c. 1.5 mm long, membranous, included in calyx tube; seeds 1 or 2, ovoid, c. 1.3 mm long, brown or yellowish with darker spots. Flowers Sep.–Nov.
LoM, MuM, Wim, Brid, VVP, VRiv, MSB, RobP, MuF, GipP, OtP, WaP, Gold, CVU, GGr, DunT, NIS, WPro, HSF, HNF. Naturalised all States except NT. Native to northern Africa, Europe and temperate Asia.
Widespread but mostly in drier northern and western parts of the State
Zohary & Heller (1984) recognize 6 varieties of which only the type variety has been recorded for Victoria.
