Home
Herbs [or shrublets], annual or perennial. Stipules distinct. Leaves digitately 3-foliolate, usually petiolate. Inflorescences leaf-opposed, umbellate [or racemose], long pedunculate. Calyx cuplike, most abaxial tooth narrowly triangular and longest but other 4 teeth ± joined in pairs. Corolla standard ovate or obovate, glabrous, claw short; wings sometimes much shorter than standard; keel rounded at apex. Stamens 10, connate into a dorsally split sheath; anthers dimorphic, 4 longer and basifixed, 6 shorter and dorsifixed. Ovary sessile; ovules many; style incurved; stigma terminal. Legume subsessile, slightly inflated, usually many seeded. Seeds without an aril; funicle threadlike.
Standard predominantly yellow, or elsewhere sometimes white, pink or blue, hairy or glabrous outside; wings shorter or longer than the keel, often hairy, generally sculptured; keel with apex rounded, pointed or somewhat beaked, often hairy.
Leaves in Flora Zambesiaca area digitately 3-foliolate or lower ones occasionally 1-foliolate, elsewhere sometimes all 1-foliolate or up to 8-foliolate; stipules small or foliaceous, usually single at each node.
Inflorescences terminal or leaf-opposed, the flowers in racemes, heads, clusters or single; bract small to foliaceous, sometimes inserted on the pedicel; bracteoles small or more often lacking.
Stamens in a sheath open on the upper side; anthers markedly dimorphic, 4 oblong to linear and basifixed, 5 ovate and dorsifixed, the carinal one intermediate.
Calyx usually with lateral and upper lobes joined higher on either side, sometimes (sect. Oxydium) with 5 subequal lobes.
Pods linear, oblong or ovate, flat or turgid, rarely folded and twisted, usually dehiscent, few–many-seeded.
Seeds rounded to generally oblique-cordiform, smooth to finely tuberculate.
Ovary sessile to stipitate; style tapered, with a small stigma.
Herbs.
