Centrosema (Dc.) Benth.

Mostly twining vines, trailing, or sometimes high climbing, stems often wiry, puberulent. Leaves imparipinnate 1-5-foliolate, but mostly 3-foliolate, the leaflets narrow or broad; petiolules mostly short, drying wrinkled; petioles sometimes winged; stipels equalling or exceeding the petiolules (Panama); stipules promi-nently nervate. Inflorescences several flowered congested racemes, usually only one flower opening at a time; bracts and bracteoles nervate, the bracts often spathaceous or calyx-like, enfolding the bud. Flowers showy, the standard flat, discoid, often emarginate, with a distinct notch or spur near the base, mostly puberulent outside, the keel and wings directed upwards, curved; stamens dia-delphous, the vexillary stamen free or nearly so, ovary linear, sessile, pubescent, the style incurved, sometimes persistent as an elongate beak, glabrous except basally, apically expanded into a blade, the stigma marginal on the style apex, minutely pubescent. Legume linear, dehiscent along the 2 valves, often spiralling, the sutures prominent, the apex sometimes long-beaked; seeds plump, ellipsoidal, numerous, the hilum linear along one edge.