Japan Flora: Perennial berb, usually glabrous or sometimes with sparse, yellowish, short, appressed pubescence; stems erect, 80-150 cm. long, terete, slightly ligneous near the base, branching above; stipules linear or filiform, 5-8 mm. long; leaves petioled, 15-25 cm. long, the leaflets 15-40, narrowly oblong to broadly lanceolate, 2-4 cm. long, 7-15 mm. wide, obtuse to rather acute, slightly appressed-pubescent on both sides or on the paler underside only; racemes erect, terminal, 10-20 cm. long, manyflowered; flowers pale greenish yellow, rarely purplish, 15-18 mm. long; calyx loosely appressed-pubescenr, oblique, 7-8 mm. long, the teeth depressed; legumes coriaceous, linear, 7-8 cm. long, 7-8 mm. across, obtusely 4-angled, constricted between the sads, short-stiped, appressed-pilose while young. June-July. Grassy places in lowlands and waste grounds.
Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu; common and somewhat variable, our plants generally with smaller leaflets than in the continental Asian phase. Siberia, China, and Korea.