Polhillia pallens C.H.Stirt.

Erect multi-stemmed shrub up to 1 m high. Bark dull brown, prominently lenticelled. Stipules 20-25 mm long, fused, villous. Leaflets 5-6 mm long, 1.5-2 mm wide (juvenile plants have larger leaflets, from 8-13 mm long, 4-5 mm wide), terminal leaflet slightly longer, obovate becoming narrowly obovate in mature plants, slightly arcuate, base cuneate, apex obtuse, conduplicate but often flat in juvenile plants, densely sericeous. Inflorescences 1-2-flowered. Flowers 9-10 mm long, pale yellow, each flower subtended by a small erect bract, ebracteolate; pedicel 1-2 mm long, tapering. Calyx 6 mm long, including tube 4 mm long; vexillar teeth triangular, 1.5 mm long, almost equally broad at the base; lateral and keel lobes mutually coherent to a lip, narrower and shorter than the vexillar teeth, downy outside, glabrous inside. Standard 10 mm long, 9 mm wide, claw 3 mm long, blade emarginate, sericeous on back. Wing petals 10-11 mm long, 3.5-4 mm wide, claw 4 mm long, curved, scarcely auriculate, gibbous, widest in middle, equal in length to keel petals, indented on base line; sculpturing upper basal and left central, finely lamellate-lunulate. Keel petals 10 mm long, blade 6 mm long, claw 4 mm long, fused from apex for one-third their length along the lower margins, auriculate, pocketed near the base. Androecium 10 mm long, stamens sheathed, open on upper side, anthers markedly dimorphic, alternately elongate and basifixed, 1.5-1.6 mm long, then short and dorsifixed, 0.7 mm long, the shorter anthers developing later than the longer anthers and eventually overtopping them. Pistil 10 mm long; ovary 7 mm long, linear, flattened, subsessile, densely pubescent merging into upcurved style; style erect, directed forwards, height of curvature 5 mm; stigma terminal, fibrillose, peripheral elements longest and arcuate; ovules 7-8. Fruits 26-32 mm long, 5-5.5 mm wide, dark brown to black but appearing grey owing to the dense covering of soft villous hairs; somewhat constricted between the seeds. Seeds 2.8-2.9 mm long, 2.4-2.6 mm wide, 2-2.2 mm thick, testa simple-reticulate with heavy ridges, sheen dull, dark brown, slightly reniform, transverse section elliptic; hilum round, recessed, sub-terminal or off-centre, rim aril inconspicuous and irregular, micropyle hidden; tracheid bar narrowly ovate, vesturing of tracheoids unbranched micoid; cotyledons with inflexed embryonic axis; cotyledon-radicle junction plain, radicle greater than half the length of the seed; endosperm present; interfaces curved, sides rounded. The main flowering season seems to be in August-September (October), supplemented in some years with irregular flowering in February dependent on the rainfall.