It is native to southwestern Europe, North Africa, and the Canary Islands.

This is a shrub with hairy green stems and branches which can exceed two meters in height.

Its leaves are made up of tough, green, lance-shaped leaflets with woolly undersides.

The fruit is a hairy legume pod one to four centimeters long containing several seeds.

It can be found on other continents in areas of similar Mediterranean climate, such as California in the United States, Australia and New Zealand.