Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Climbing or sprawling annual or perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems usually winged.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound (even-pinnate). Alternate. The rachis ending in a well–developed tendril, leaflets 2–18, paired or scattered. Margins toothed or rarely entire. Usually conspicuously parallel-veined, sometimes absent. Petiolate. Stipules present, usually large and semisagittate or semihastate, persistent.

Flowers: Flowers solitary or in axillary racemes. Flowers papilionaceous. Calyx actinomorphic to bilabiate, 5-lobed, the lobes subequal or upper pair shorter. Corolla often large and showy, the keel usually obtuse. Stamens 10; upper stamen distinct or somewhat connate with the other 9, which are connate into a tube. Ovary superior; style 1, apical, pubescent on upper (adaxial) side ca. ½ its length, often hardened and flattened at apex.

Fruit: Pods linear to oblong; cylindrical or flattened; dehiscent. Seeds 2 or more; globose or angular; sometimes compressed; with a thin aril.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: