Crotalaria lejoloba - Rusty Rattlepod

Rusty Rattlepod is a herb, erect to rising up, 20-60 cm tall. Branches are brownish yellow spreading hairy. Flowers are yellow; standard petal narrowly elliptic, 8-10 mm; wings oblong, about 8 mm; keel about as long as wings, narrowed apically from middle and extended into a long twisted beak included in or protruding slightly beyond sepal-cup. Sepal-cup is 2-lipped, 1-1.2 cm, parted to base, densely hairy; sepals lanceshaped. Flower-stalks are 3-5 mm; bracteoles inserted at base of sepal-cup tube. Ovary is nearly stalkless. Flowers are borne in racemes at branch ends, 2-6-flowered; bracts lanceshaped, 2-4 mm. Stipules are lanceshaped to triangular-lanceshaped, 5-8 mm. Leaves are simple; leaf blade elliptic, 2-6 x 1-3 cm, both surfaces hairy but below more densely so, base slightly wedge-shaped, tip blunt to tapering. Pod is oblong, 2-3 cm, 20-30-seeded, hairless. Rusty Rattlepod is found in open forests, mountain grasslands, at altitudes of 400-2200 m, in the Himalayas, from Nepal to Sikkim, S.E. Asia, China, Malaysia. It is also found in Ceylon and South India. Flowering: June-October.