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Perennial herbs or shrubs, erect or trailing; base woody; roots usually heavy; pubescence usually close and dense. Leaves alternate, odd pinnate; leaflets (1-)3-41, almost always hairy, at least beneath; secondary veins parallel, distinctively sharply ascending, ca. 300 to the midrib; rachis usually grooved above; estipellate but tufts of hairs sometimes present in the axils; stipulate. Inflorescence terminal or axillary, sometimes apparently leaf opposed but actually terminal and over-topped by the adjacent axillary branch, racemose, elongate, the flowers in clusters of 2-6 or more at the nodes, each cluster usually with a primary bract at the base and each pedicel with a secondary bract at the base. Flowers red, purple, or white, petals clawed, the standard hairy outside, often densely so, the wings about as long as the standard and usually basally adnate to the keel; stamens usually diadelphous, the vexillary stamen frequently fused to the stamen tube above, free at the base; ovary sessile, slender, usually hairy, the style bearded above in many species, or glabrous. Fruit flat, linear or oblong, straight or slightly curved, sessile, often obliquely contracted distally and beaked on the upper side by the persistent style base, continuous within or slightly septate, the valves usually coiling in dehiscence; seeds several to many, circular to oblong, flattened. Tephrosia is a genus of 250-400 species in temperate and tropical regions of North and South America, Africa, southern Asia, and Australia. It reaches its highest diversity in dry open habitats of Mexico. The four species reported from Panama are also characteristic of open habitats. Many species produce rotenone and related compounds which are used as fish poisons and insecticides, and at least several. species have been cultivated in the New World tropics for these purposes. Tephrosia has also been planted as a cover crop and green manure. Chromosomes: 2n = 22 (Wood, 1949).
Herbs, perennial or rarely annual, often suffrutescent, usually sericeous. Stipules caducous. Leaves imparipinnate; stipels absent; leaflet blades opposite, abaxially often sericeous, secondary veins to ca. 30 on each side of midvein and closely parallel, margin entire. Pseudoracemes terminal or axillary, sometimes opposite a leaf; bracts usually caducous. Bracteoles absent. Corolla white, cream-colored, or mauve, occasionally orange or red; standard reflexed, suborbicular, outside villous or sericeous. Stamens monadelphous; vexillary stamen somewhat distinct from other 9. Ovary sessile, with trichomes, with numerous ovules. Legume flat, occasionally inflated, dehiscent, apex often beaked; valves twisted. Seeds 5-16 per legume, oblong, ellipsoid, or occasionally globose; radicle folded.
Cal-tube hemispheric, slightly oblique, the lobes lanceolate, exceeding the tube; standard subrotund, short-clawed, sericeous on the back; wings and keel connivent, broadly auriculate on the upper side above the short claw, the wings obovate-oblong, the keel semicircular; stamens 10, the upper one at least partly free; style in our spp. bearded along the inner side; fr linear, several-seeded, dehiscent; our spp. perennial herbs from long roots, with odd-pinnate lvs, no stipellules, and medium-sized yellow or purple fls in terminal or lf-opposed racemes; lfls in our spp. with numerous straight parallel lateral veins. 400+, mostly warm reg.
Leaves usually imparipinnate, less often 1-foliolate, rarely palmately 3–7-foliolate; leaflets usually narrowest at the base and widest above the middle, with the lateral nerves parallel, running through to the margin and often united there to form a well-developed marginal nerve; stipels absent except in palmately-leaved species.
Petals usually reddish-purple, sometimes salmon-pink or red or yellowish-orange; standard pubescent or silky outside, with a well-defined claw; keel petals oblong-elliptic or oblong-falcate, with a distinct claw and auriculate at the base of the blade, joined along the lower margin, slightly adhering to the wings.
Inflorecences usually in terminal and leaf-opposed or axillary pseudoracemes, with flowers clustered at the nodes, the inflorescences sometimes paniculate or contracted and dense, or the flowers clustered (elsewhere rarely singly) in the axils of upper leaves; bracteoles generally absent.
Ovary usually sessile, 1–22-ovulate; style sharply or gradually upcurved, linear or tapering, sometimes twisted, glabrous or pubescent; stigma a transverse line, punctate or minutely capitate, in the last case often pencil-like.
Upper filament lightly attached to the others or less often free, widened and often arched at the base; free parts relatively short, not widened at the tip; anthers dorsifixed.
Seeds oblong-reniform, with a small hilum; aril developed to varying degrees; radicle incurved.
Calyx 5-lobed, the upper pair of lobes joined higher, the lowest lobe often longest.
Annual or perennial herbs, or softly woody shrubs, rarely small trees.
Pod usually linear to oblong, variously beaked, dehiscent.
Disk usually present around the base of the ovary.
