A perennial plant with a fusiform rhizome, with numerous ascending elevated (up to 80 cm) stems (sometimes recumbent), rather densely dressed trifoliate leaves. Flowers 20-30 in a capitate raceme, small, lemon-yellow, arranged according to the same plan as most legumes; semilunar beans (sickle-shaped), flattened. Blooms all summer.
Grows on slopes, upland meadows, along railway embankments, in wastelands.
Contains saponins, traces of alkaloids.
An aqueous decoction of the whole plant is drunk for nervous disorders.