Description :

• Trees or shrubs, usually with golden brown or black indumentum
• Leaves pulvinate, usually imparipinnate, rarely 1-foliolate; leaflets usually up to 11, alternate or rarely subopposite, acuminate; stipels present or 0
• Flowers white, usually speckled or streaked with pink or purple, usually fragrant, in terminal, rarely axillary, racemes or panicles; bracts and bracteoles caducous
• Calyx tubular, with short lobes, upper pairs united for half their length
• Petals : vexillum shortly clawed, with lamina oblong, not appendaged; wings and keel auriculate
• Stamens monadelphous or diadelphous; adaxial stamen free, but sometimes adhering in middle; anthers uniform, without appendages
• Ovary shortly stalked; style with a small, terminal punctate or capitate stigma; ovules 2-6
• Pod flat, asymmetric, shortly beaked, dehiscing into thin, woody, twisted valves
• Seeds 1-3, ellipsoid, black or dark brown

Nomenclature:

• Craibia Harms & Dunn
  • Harms & Dunn: 106 (1911)
  • Gillett: 189 (1960)
  • Hutchinson: 378 (1964)
  • Gillett: 146 (1971)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 10, tropical Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 1: Craibia zimmermannii (Harms) Dunn, N KwaZulu-Natal and possibly Swaziland