Medium to tall hairless plant. Leaves pinnate with 4 to 8 pairs of oblong or lanceolate leaflets. Flowers white, to pale purplish lilac, 10 to 15 mm long in lateral racemes.

Damp meadows, stream banks and waste ground.

Flowers July to September.

Perennial.

Widespread in England, particularly in the south east, scarcer elsewhere in Britain.

Occasional and local in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 23 of the 617 tetrads.