Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Annual or perennial herbs or rarely shrubs.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound. Opposite. Leaflets (1,3)5–11(–17). Petiolate. Stipules adnate to base of petiole.

Flowers: Flowers alternate or 2–5 verticillate in terminal or leaf-opposed racemes. Flowers papilionaceous. Calyx bilabiate, the upper lip 2-lobed, the lower lip shallowly 3-lobed, or the lobes nearly completely connate. Corolla variously colored, standard short–clawed, the margins often partially reflexed at anthesis, wing petals usually enclosing keel, keel beaked. Stamens 10, connate into a tube; anthers alternately long and short. Ovary superior, sessile; ovules 2 to numerous; style 1, apical.

Fruit: Pods dehiscent; inflated or sometimes flat; often constricted between the seeds. Seeds several; usually orbicular–rectangular to oblong–ellipsoid; hilum small and sunken.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: