Canavalia Dc.

Twining vines, prostrate, clambering or high climbing, rarely more or less erect subshrubs, mostly perennial, somewhat woody; stems often sturdy, mostly pubescent. Leaves alternate, pinnate trifoliolate, the leaflets mostly nearly sym-metrical, ovate or elliptical, sometimes broad, mucronulate, rarely emarginate, mostly pubescent on both sides, pinnately veined, the principal veins and costa slender and elevated beneath; petiolules 5-7 mm long, mostly pubescent with stiff ascending hairs; petioles equalling or shorter than the terminal leaflet; stipels minute and caducous; stipules caducous. Inflorescences axillary racemes, mostly 10-60 cm long, pendant or prostrate and ascending; peduncles with swollen nodes each bearing 2-6 pedicels; bracts caducous; bracteoles rotund to acute, caducous; pedicels mostly 1-3 mm long, the flowers mostly resupinate. Flowers showy, somewhat fragrant; the calyx tubular or campanulate, bilabiate, the upper lip sometimes forming a short beak, and when pressed appearing either entire or emarginate, the lower lip of 3 minute teeth, the lateral pair often rotund, the lowest tooth mostly pointed; corolla white, purplish, bluish, pink or red, some-times with white or yellow markings, the standard obovate, reflexed, emarginate (subgenus Wenderothia) or entire, the wings free, narrow, auricled, the keel ascending, united, auricled; stamens mostly united, the vexillary stamen some-times more or less free; stigma capitate, the ovary pubescent. Legume 6-40 cm long and 1.5-5 cm wide, oblong, often falcate when young, apically beaked, sometimes stipitate, coriaceous or becoming woody, mostly compressed, with prominent longitudinal ridges and 1 or 2 (3) ridges on the valves, dehiscent, sometimes explosively, the valves often twisting, pubescent or glabrescent; seeds numerous imbedded in a papery endocarp, sometimes buoyant, brown, mottled or white, mostly ellipsoidal and somewhat compressed, the hilum peripheral, short or long, 7-35 mm long.