Shrublet up to 1m. Leaves 3-foliolate, leaflets terete, sausage-shaped, sub-glabrous, 2-8mm long; flowers in terminal heads, white or cream-coloured, sometimes with pink on wings; keel glabrous, upper lobes deeply separated; calyx shortly silky.

For John Forbes (1799-1823), English plant collector and naturalist who visited the Cape in 1822 with the Horticultural Society of London.