Description :

• Herbs, often strongly scented
• Leaves pinnately 3-foliolate; stipules adnate to petioles
• Flowers solitary and sessile, or peduncled in leaf axils, or in heads, or subumbels or short, dense racemes; bracts minute
• Calyx with campanulate tube; lobes ovate, acuminate, ± as long as tube
• Petals : vexillum sessile or clawed; wings oblong, eared, clawed; keel shorter than wings, planoconvex, clawed
• Stamens diadelphous, with vexillary stamen free or connate with others to middle; anthers uniform
• Ovary sessile or shortly stalked, few- to many-ovuled; style with terminal stigma
• Pod a straight or rarely falcate legume, usually dehiscent
• Seeds usually many
• x = 8 (6, 7, 11) (polyploidy, B-chromosomes)

Nomenclature:

• Trigonella L.
  • Linnaeus: 776 (1753)
  • Harvey: 161 (1862)
  • Ivimey-Cook: 150 (1968)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 80, Mediterranean region, central Europe, Africa, Asia to Australia
• Southern Africa : Species 2, scattered, mainly central, but not extending much into Western Cape