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Annual or perennial herbs, shrubs, small trees or rarely lianas. Young stems and inflorescence rachis often angular or flattened. Leaves usually alternate, rarely opposite or whorled, rarely caducous. Flowers in a many-flowered inflorescence, rarely solitary. Inflorescence a terminal, leaf-opposed or axillary raceme or spike (or sometimes a terminal panicle); bracts and bracteoles present. Flowers zygomorphic, white, yellow, blue, purple or mauve. Sepals 5, outer 3 unmodified, with the inner 2 lateral sepals (alae) enlarged and often petaloid. Petals 3, connate at the base and variously adnate to the stamens, lower petal a boat-shaped keel, clawed, with a pair of variously shaped appendages on the distal dorsal surface (or unadorned); lateral upper petals clawed, often auriculate on free outer margins, variously hairy or glabrous. Stamens 8, fused at the base into a staminal sheath, monadelphous or triadelphous (or partly diadelphous outside Australia); anthers 2-celled and dehiscent via a short apical pore-like slit. Style variously hooked, curved or ± straight, sometimes apparently extending past fertile stigma; although considered to have two stigmatic lobes, in Australian material, the second stigma is often modified (either reduced or lost) and sterile; fertile stigma globular or flat, lateral or subapical. Ovary laterally compressed, 2-celled with 1 ovule per cell. Fruit a compressed loculidical capsule, usually obovate or orbiculate, with a broad or narrow marginal wing, dehiscing along the outer suture. Seeds hairy, with an aril, the aril with 2 or 3 appendages of various shapes and lengths running longitudinally along the seed.
Annual or perennial herbs, or shrubs or small trees, rarely small, woody climbers. Leaves simple, alternate, rarely opposite or whorled, petiolate; leaf blade papery or subleathery, margin entire, glabrous or pilose. Racemes terminal, axillary, or extra-axillary. Flowers bisexual, zygomorphic; bracts 1-3, persistent or caducous; bracteoles present. Sepals 5, unequal, persistent or caducous, in 2 ranks; outer 3 small; inner 2 petaloid, large. Petals 3, connate in lower 1/2, white, yellow, or purple-red, keel boat-shaped, cucullate, or helmet-shaped enclosing stamens and style, apex with often highly divided appendage. Stamens 8; filaments united at least at base, forming trough-shaped sheath ("staminal sheath"), open on upper side, adnate with petals, variously united or free above; anthers basifixed, with or without stalk, 1-or 2-celled, dehiscent from terminal pore or slit. Disk present or absent. Ovary 2-loculed, compressed; ovule 1 per locule, anatropous, pendulous; style 1, erect or curved; stigmas 1 or 2. Fruit capsular, compressed, often winged. Seeds 2, usually black, ovoid, rounded or shortly cuneate, pubescent or glabrous, strophiolate at hiliferous end, strophiole cap-shaped, cucullate, margin entire or variously lobed, other end sometimes with appendage.
large, petaloid, wing-like; petals 3, connate basally, the lower keel-shaped, crested, lobed, or occasionally unappendaged, the 2 upper ligulate to ovate, connate to the keel or adnate to the staminal sheath or both; stamens 8, the filaments connate nearly to the apex into a sheath split above and adnate to the petals below; ovary 2-locular, the ovules solitary, the style incurved, the stigma dilated, entire to 2-lobed, often tufted. Capsules usually membranous, compressed, obovate to orbi-cular, generally wingless, loculicidally dehiscent; seeds usually 2, often pilose, mostly arillate, with or without endosperm.
Sep 5, the 3 outer small, the 2 inner (lateral) ones, called wings, much larger and often petaloid; pet 3, all ± united below with the filament-tube, the 2 upper ones similar, the lower one keel-shaped or boat-shaped with a fringe-like crest (in our spp.); stamens (6)8, the filaments monadelphous into a sheath split along the upper side; ovary bilocular; seed usually with an aril; ours herbs with alternate or verticillate lvs and small (except in the first sp.) fls in open to dense and spike-like or head-like racemes. 500, cosmop.
Herbs or shrubs. Lvs alternate, opposite or verticillate. Fls in terminal, pseudolateral or axillary heads, racemes or panicles. Calyx 4-5-merous; 2 inner segments usually larger and petaloid (wings), persistent or deciduous. Petals usually 3, the outer sometimes reduced, the inner (keel) often beaked or with a fimbriate crest. Stamens usually 8, rarely 6; anthers 1-2-locular. Fr. a 2-celled, laterally flattened, dehiscent, oval to orbicular capsule, sometimes winged, usually membranous; seed usually hairy.
Shrubs, subshrubs, or commonly herbs in Panama. Leaves alternate, some-times opposite or verticillate, simple, short-petioled or sessile. Racemes terminal or lateral, sometimes contracted into heads. Flowers often showy; sepals 5, un-equal, the outer 3 herbaceous, free or sometimes 2 connate basally, the inner 2
