Description :

• Perennial herbs, climbing, procumbent or prostrate
• Leaves pinnately 3-foliolate, long-petiolate, stipulate; leaflets ovate, terminal one 3-lobed, densely ciliate
• Flowers magenta to pink, in axillary racemes on long peduncles, ebracteate
• Calyx hairy, with campanulate tube, somewhat 2-lipped; upper lip entire, lower 3-lobed, with lobes shorter than tube
• Petals : vexillum shortly bilobed, with inflexed auricles and 2 appendages on limb; wings eared, clawed; keel incurved, subsessile
• Stamens diadelphous, with vexillary stamen adnate to others at middle and kneed at base; anthers uniform
• Ovary linear, 4-8-ovuled, hairy; style strongly curved near base and apex in same direction, broadening from base upwards, with narrow, membranous margins and lateral, truncate stigma
• Pod compressed, somewhat falcate
• Seeds reniform, shiny, reddish brown, slightly mottled with black

Nomenclature:

• Alistilus N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 294 (1921)
  • Verdcourt: 387, 409 (1970)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 2, S tropical Africa, Madagascar
• Southern Africa : Species 1: Alistilus bechuanicus N.E.Br., from Botswana into the North-West and the Northern Province