Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Herbs or subshrubs, climbing, prostrate, or rarely erect.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound (pinnately trifoliolate, rarely unifoliolate or subpalmately trifoliolate). Alternate. Lower surfaces with conspicuous yellow or orange glandular dots. Petiolate. Stipules ovate or lanceolate. Leaflet stipels minute or absent.

Flowers: Flowers in clusters of 1–2(3) in axillary or terminal pseudoracemes, bracts often well developed, but caducous. Flowers papilionaceous; bracteoles absent. Calyx 5-lobed, the upper 2 lobes connate into a bifid lip. Corolla yellow to brownish purple with yellow or reddish longitudinal lines, standard ovate or suborbicular, with small auricles. Stamens 10; upper stamen distinct, the other 9 connate into a tube. Ovary superior; styles pilose at base, upper part somewhat flattened and stiff, glabrous.

Fruit: Pods suborbicular to narrowly oblong and often falcate; compressed; tardily dehiscent; not septate. Seeds (1)2; reddish to brown or black; reniform to suborbicular; compressed; with a short or elongated hilum up to ¼ the circumference of the seed; sometimes with a well–developed rim–aril.

Ploidy:

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