e-Key v3 - Dolichos
SANBI Flora Keys Logo
Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Fabaceae - Papilionoideae - Phaseoleae - Phaseolinae - Dolichos L.

Description :

  • Herbs or undershrubs, climbing, prostrate, or erect, sometimes with large woody rootstocks
  • Leaves pinnately, rarely digitately, 3-foliolate, stipulate
  • Flowers yellow or purple, in axillary or terminal racemes, subumbellate, fascicled, or solitary
  • Calyx with campanulate tube, 2-lipped; upper lip simple or 2-toothed; lower 3-lobed
  • Petals : vexillum often with inflexed auricles at base, subsessile or clawed; wings ± adhering to keel, clawed; keel usually strongly incurved, often beaked, but not twisted
  • Stamens diadelphous; anthers uniform
  • Ovary with basal disc, 2-many-ovuled; style swollen, glabrous or pubescent, with terminal, capitate stigma
  • Pod straight or arcuate, flattened, 2-valved
  • Seeds somewhat flattened, rarely with appendage
  • x = 10, 11 (aneuploids)

Nomenclature:

  • Dolichos L.
    • Linnaeus: 725 (1753)
    • Phillips: 427 (1951)
    • Hutchinson: 441 (1964)
    • Verdcourt: 411 (1970)
    • Verdcourt: 674 (1971)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 60, mainly confined to Africa but extending to India and E Asia
  • Southern Africa : Species ± 12, widespread

References:

  • HUTCHINSON, J. 1964. Order LEGUMINALES. The genera of flowering plants 1. Oxford University Press, Oxford
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum , edn 1. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. Leguminosae . The genera of South African flowering plants, edn 2. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
  • VERDCOURT, B. 1970. Studies in the Leguminosae - Papilionoideae : III. Kew Bulletin 24
  • VERDCOURT, B. 1971. Flora of tropical East Africa . Leguminosae (part 4). Papilionoideae