Description:

• Trees or shrubs, sometimes scandent
• Leaves imparipinnate, 2-several-jugate; leaflets entire, usually opposite; stipellae usually present; stipules small, often caducous; a pulvinus usually present at base of rachis
• Flowers white, pink, blue or violet, in terminal racemes or panicles
• Calyx campanulate, somewhat 2-lipped or truncate; 2 upper lobes sometimes subconnate
• Petals: vexillum conspicuous with oblong claw, sometimes with a callus, or eared at base, silky-pubescent or glabrous; wings falcate-ovate, often with broad claw, eared; keel incurved, obtuse, usually clawed, sometimes eared
• Stamens monadelphous or diadelphous, sometimes free; anthers uniform
• Ovary sessile or occasionally stalked, pubescent, often linear, few- to many-ovuled; style inflexed, with small, subcapitate stigma
• Pod linear, lanceolate, oblong or obovate, compressed, coriaceous or woody, 2-valved, but often very tardily dehiscent, glabrous, hairy or velvety
• Seeds sometimes solitary, orbicular, or reniform
• x = 8, 10, 11, 12 (polyploidy, B-chromosomes)

Nomenclature:

• Millettia Wight & Arn.
  • Wight & Arnott: 263 (1834)
  • Harvey: 211 (1862)
  • Gillett: 122 (1971)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species nearly 100, cosmopolitan in tropical and subtropical regions
• Southern Africa: Species 2, N KwaZulu-Natal to the Eastern Cape