Lonchocarpus Kunth

Trees, shrubs or rarely woody climbers. Leaves imparipinnate, sometimes only pinnately 3-foliolate or rarely (and not in East Africa) 1-foliolate; stipules usually present, caducous or subpersistent; stipels usually present in section Paniculati, elsewhere generally absent; leaflets opposite, the upper ones generally the larger. Flowers in well-developed terminal and often also axillary panicles in section Paniculati, elsewhere generally crowded on abbreviated lateral branches or clustered at the nodes of a simple or sparsely branched primary rhachis; flower-bracts and bracteoles small, usually caducous. Calyx campanulate or cupulate, shortly 5-toothed with the upper 2 united almost to the tips or (outside East Africa) often sub-truncate. Corolla much longer than calyx, white, pink or purplish, sometimes with yellow markings on the standard, glabrous or with scattered hairs in section Paniculati, elsewhere more commonly conspicuously silky-hairy at least on the standard outside; standard ovate, obovate or suborbicular, sometimes auriculate and/or with calluses at base of the blade; wings adhering to the keel and of subequal length in African species. Stamens united into a tube closed above, but split at base either side of the vexillary stamen (latter may be free in young bud); anthers dorsifixed. Ovary usually shortly stipitate, few-ovulate; style curved, tapered to a very small terminal stigma, glabrous or with scattered hairs like those of the ovary on the lower part. Fruits flattened, indehiscent, broadly ovate to linear-oblong, with the upper edge thin, thickened or slightly winged, usually stipitate, papery to coriaceous, 1–few-seeded. Seeds (at least in Africa) oblong-reniform, usually smooth; hilum and rim-aril small.