Crotalaria longipes - South-Indian Rattlepod

South-Indian Rattlepod is a shrub, up to 3 m tall. Stems are densely rusty silky velvet-hairy. Leaves are simple, alternate, 1.7-7.5 x 1.0-3.1 cm, smaller in flowering branches, up to 1 cm long, obovate-oblong, elliptic-oblong, elliptic-ovate or inverted-lanceshaped, blunt, somewhat pointed or wedge-shaped at base, blunt, pointed and with a short sharp point or apiculate at tip, moderately and minutely silky velvet-hairy on both sides, upper side shining and almost silvery; lateral veins 6-8 pairs, distinct on both sides, joining intramarginally. Leaf-stalk is 1-3 mm long, hairy. Flowers are borne in panicles at branch-ends and lateral, branches 6-11, stiff, 12-22 cm long. Flowers are 1.5-2.0 x 1.0-1.3 cm, 3-4 at the top of each branch, crowded; flower-stalks alternate, 0.2-1.2 cm long, hairy; bracts leaf-like, reflexed or spreading, one or more at the base of flower-stalks or sometimes many on the flower-cluster-stalk, ovate or ovate-lanceshaped, 4-8 x about 2.5 mm, tapering, hairy above, blackish and hairless beneath; bracteoles 2, ovate, about 3 mm long, closely adpressed to sepal-cup or at about the middle of flower-stalk. Sepal-tube is about 3 mm long, silky, lobes 2-lipped, upper 2-fid, lower 3-fid, lanceshaped, 7-9 mm long, tapering, incurved upwards, not curled on margins. Petals are yellow, twice as long as sepal-cup; vexillum broadly ovate, 1.7-2.0 x about 1.5 cm, blunt-pointed at tip, densely ferrugineous silky velvet-hairy above on the whole surface; wing petals oblong, about 1.5 x 0.4 cm, claw arcuate; keel petals ovate, about 1.8 x 1.0 cm. Staminal sheath about 6 mm long; free filaments 0.5-1.0 cm long. Pods are stalked, linear-oblong or oblong, 2-3 x 1.0-1.2 cm, nearly hairless, blackish-brown; stalks 4-7 mm long; seeds 8-12. South-Indian Rattlepod is native to South India. Flowering: October-January.