Annual, erect, glandular, pubescent or glabrous, herb, 30-60 cm, much branched; branchlets sparsely bristly; leaves long petioled, pubescent, scabrid, upper usually 3 foliolate, sometimes 5-9 foliolate with linear leaflets, mucronate at apex, strigose; bracts small, linear or 3-lobed, pedicel 2-6 cm, thin, stiff, much elongated in fruits; flowers usually tetramerous in simple or corymbose racemes; sepals minute, narrowly imbricate; petals 4, sessile, light pink, ovate; stamens 30-50, shorter than petals, anther yellow, filaments purple tinged, swollen at apex, thin at base; ovary 1-locular with many ovules, on 2 parietal placentae; capsule linear-cylindric, about 3-4 cm with parallel, wavy striations, glabrous; seeds many, 2 mm across, brownish-black, rather larger, warty.