Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Herbaceous climbers.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound (pinnately trifoliate). Alternate. Petiolate. Stipules present, usually reflexed and persistent, not produced below the point of insertion. Leaflets stipellate.

Flowers: Flowers in clusters of 2–4 on a very short, warty axis, these arranged in lax pseudoracemes, bracts caducous. Flowers papilionaceous, bracteoles caducous. Calyx 2–lipped, the upper 2 lobes connate into an entire to bifid lip, the lower lip 3-lobed. Corolla variously colored but not yellow or orange, standard orbicular, reflexed, auriculate at base, wings longer than keel. Stamens 10; upper stamen distinct or slightly confluent with other 9, which are connate into a tube. Ovary superior; style 1, apical, thickened and stiff throughout, straight, making an abrupt angle of ca. 60" or more with the ovary laterally flattened with a row of antrorse hairs on upper (adaxial) side near apex; stigma terminal.

Fruit: Pods tardily dehiscent; oblong–falcate; compressed; with herbaceous valves and spongy septa; usually tipped with a persistent style. Seeds few; ovoid; slightly compressed; with an elongated; linear hilum with a whitish rim–aril.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

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