Adenanthera L.

Unarmed trees or shrubs. Stipules not spinescent, inconspicuous and early caducous. Leaves bipinnate, not sensitive to the touch, rachis and pinnae without extrafloral nectaries; leaflets alternate. Inflorescences consisting of pendulous or erect, pedunculate, spiciform racemes; peduncles axillary, solitary or a few together in the axils of the terminal leaves or at the end of branches subtended by developing leaves; pedicels jointed. Flowers pentamerous, uniform, bisexual. Calyx valvate, connate at base. Petals valvate, sometimes coherent at base and united for the lower ¼ mm with the stamens, but soon splitting. Stamens 10, free; anthers with a stipitate, caducous gland at the top of the connective. Pods chartaceous-coriaceous, linear, straight, curved or spirally twisted, dehiscent along both sutures; the yellowish and glossy endocarp loosening from the dark epicarp, but not peeling off. Seeds red or partly red (in hilar end) and black, obliquely held in pod, ellipsoid, obovoid, orbicular or ovoid-ellipsoid, biconvex, compressed, with a hard testa with areole, wingless, aril absent, but funicle thick, endosperm present; cotyledons large and embryonic axis straight or acute angled to the hilum, radicle curved.