Trees, shrubs or rarely woody climbers. Leaves imparipinnate; stipules usually present, caducous or subpersistent; stipels usually present; leaflets opposite, the upper ones generally larger. Flowers in well-developed terminal and often also axillary panicles generally crowded on abbreviated lateral branches or clustered at the nodes of a simple or sparsely branched primary rhachis; flower-bracts and bracteoles small, usually caducous. Calyx campanulate or cupulate, shortly 5-toothed; corolla much longer than calyx, white, pink or purplish, sometimes with yellow markings on the standard, glabrous or with scattered hairs; standard ovate, obovate or suborbicular, sometimes auriculate and/or with calluses at base of the blade; wings adhering to the keel. Ovary usually shortly stipitate, few-ovulate. Fruit pod, flattened, indehiscent, broadly ovate to linear-oblong. Seeds oblong-reniform, usually smooth, hilum and rim-aril small.
Worldwide: 75 species, mostly in South America. 12 species in Africa and Madagascar.
Mozambique: 1 cultivated taxon. |
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