Baphia Afzel. ex G.Lodd.

Shrubs, sometimes scrambling or climbing, or trees up to 20(–25) m. high. Leaves unifoliolate; stipules quickly caducous and seldom seen in herbarium specimens but up to 15 × 4 mm. in B. kirkii; petioles with upper and lower pulvini, these sometimes contiguous (i.e. without an intervening inter-pulvinary part) and so appearing as one; lamina entire, often coriaceous. Flowers in axillary or subterminal bracteate racemes, sometimes grouped into pseudopanicles, or more often contracted into an axillary fascicle which may be reduced to a solitary flower; bracteoles linear to suborbicular, immediately beneath the flower or distant from it, sometimes both on one side of the pedicel and fused at the base or not. Calyx at anthesis splitting to the base either down one side only and so appearing spathaceous, or down both sides and so into 2 separate pieces, usually showing 2–5 distinct but short teeth at the apex, the whole persistent or caducous, sometimes shed by means of a horizontal split just above the base so that a small ring remains. Petals white, yellowish or purplish-pink, with a yellow or orange blotch at the base of the standard; standard broadly ovate to suborbicular or reniform, a claw very short or absent; wings and keel-petals with a claw, the keel-petals incompletely fused along their lower margins. Stamens free, the filaments glabrous or occasionally hairy. Ovary subsessile, glabrous to velutinous (sometimes the surfaces glabrous and the margins hairy), with a longish curved style. Pods linear-oblong to oblanceolate, usually curved upwards towards the apex, laterally compressed, often slightly woody, greyish or straw-coloured to purplish-black, sometimes pubescent, dehiscing along both margins into 2 valves. Seeds few, often only 1 developing, usually ± lenticular, the hilum on one edge with the rim-aril very small and scarcely noticeable.