Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs or subshrubs, sometimes creeping or climbing, with hyaline yellow to orange pearl glands on lower leaf surface, calyx, and pods (between simple hairs).

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound (pinnately trifoliate or sometimes palmately trifoliate). Alternate. Petiolate. Stipules small, caducous.

Flowers: Flowers in clusters of 2(3), these in terminal and/or axillary pseudoracemes or subpaniculate or fasciculate inflorescences. Flowers papilionaceous; bracteoles absent. Calyx 5-lobed, upper 2 lobes connate into a larger bifid lobe. Corolla yellow or lined with red or standard orange, red, or purplish externally. Stamens 10; upper stamen distinct, the other 9 connate into a tube. Ovary superior; ovules (2)3–10.

Fruit: Pods linear or oblong; compressed; tardily dehiscent; slightly to distinctly septate between the seeds with an external; impressed transverse line. Seeds 1–6(–10); reniform to suborbicular; usually with a conspicuous rim–aril.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: