e-Key v3 - Rafnia
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Fabaceae - Papilionoideae - Crotalarieae - Rafnia Thunb.

Description :

  • Shrubs, shrublets, sometimes with single stems from perennial rootstocks, often glaucous
  • Leaves simple, alternate, rarely opposite
  • Flowers yellow, solitary, or in short, axillary or terminal racemes, or sometimes capitate; bracts foliaceous or 0
  • Calyx with campanulate tube, usually with lowest lobe narrowest, rarely lobes subequal
  • Petals : vexillum suborbicular, sometimes bilobed, subsessile or clawed; wings falcate-oblong or oblong, clawed; keel incurved, clawed, sometimes gibbous
  • Stamens monadelphous, unequal; tube usually long; anthers unequal, linear and elliptic
  • Ovary sessile or stalked, 2-many-ovuled, glabrous; style incurved with small, capitate stigma
  • Pod linear or lanceolate, compressed
  • Seeds estrophiolate

Nomenclature:

  • Rafnia Thunb.
    • Thunberg: 144 (1800)
    • Harvey: 31(1862)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Southern Africa : Species ± 22, mostly Western Cape from Clanwilliam, extending eastwards through Eastern Cape into KwaZulu-Natal

References:

  • HARVEY, W.H. 1862. Leguminosae . Flora capensis 2
  • THUNBERG, C.P. 1800. Genera nova plantarum II. 10. Edman, Uppsala