Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Climbers, shrubs, or small trees.

Stems: Branches unarmed or armed with spines or recurved prickles.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound (bipinnate). Alternate. Leaflets opposite or occasionally alternate. Petiolate. Stipules various.

Flowers: Flowers in terminal and/or axillary racemes that are often aggregated into branched paniculate inflorescences, bracts caducous, bracteoles absent. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or unisexual, caesalpinaceous. Calyx tube short, 5-lobed, lower lobe often covering the others, hood-like. Corolla of 5 petals, imbricate, subequal or the upper one smaller and with a more developed claw. Stamens 10, distinct, alternately longer and shorter. Ovary superior; ovules usually 2–10.

Fruit: Pods flattened; rarely cylindrical; dehiscent or indehiscent; winged along the upper suture or unwinged. Seeds 1–9; transversely arranged; ellipsoid or subglobose.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: