Home
Twining herbs or shrubs. Roots sometimes tuberous. Stipules sometimes produced below point of insertion. Leaves pinnately 3-foliolate; leaflets large, stipellate, ovate or rhomboid, entire or sinuately lobed. Inflorescences axillary, racemose or paniculate with an elongated peduncle, or several racemes aggregated at tip of branchlets. Bracts usually small or narrow, very caducous; bracteoles small, subpersistent or minute and caducous. Flowers blue or purplish, usually several flowers clustered at each node of rachis. Calyx campanulate, 2 upper teeth connate into entire or bifid lip. Corolla exceeding calyx; standard with 2 inflexed auricles; wings narrowly oblong or obovate-falcate, often adherent to middle of keel; keel sometimes beaked, subequal to wings. Vexillary stamen free at base, connate in middle with others, rarely quite free; anthers uniform. Ovary subsessile, many ovuled; style filiform, inflexed above; stigma small, capitate. Legumes linear or cylindric, continuous within or filled or septate between seeds. Seeds compressed, suborbicular or transversely oblong.
Robust scrambling vines, sometimes high climbing, ?shrubs; stems herba-ceous or woody, pubescent. Leaves pinnate trifoliolate, the leaflets large, entire, lobed or undulate margined; stipels mostly present, the stipules ovate to linear, often produced below the enlarged point of insertion, the lower element some-times bifid. Inflorescences elongate stout racemes, sometimes branched, the flow-ers somewhat clustered at the end of the rachis; bracts often caducous, bracteoles ovate; pedicels inserted 1-7 at a node. Flowers sometimes appearing before the leaves; calyx campanulate, 5-toothed, the upper pair free or fused into a lip; corolla mostly bluish, pinkish or violet; standard broad, entire or emarginate, minutely spurred, the wings spurred; stamens 10, the vexillary stamen free or united to the others, usually at the middle of the filament, the anthers all alike; ovary pubescent, the style curved or abruptly bent, glabrous, the stigma glabrous. Legume oblong, compressed, usually pilose.
Cal 4-lobed through fusion of the upper 2, the lowest lobe the longest, the two lateral ones the shortest, all exceeding the tube; standard round-obovate; keel-pet narrowly oblong, nearly straight, auriculate at base; stamens 10, the uppermost one coherent with the others only near the middle; style elongate, glabrous; fr flat, several-seeded, hirsute; tall, woody or half-woody twiners with ovate stipules, large, pinnately trifoliolate lvs, and reddish-purple fls in dense axillary racemes or panicles. 12, e. Asia.
