Description:

• Herbs, undershrubs, or shrubs, sometimes villous
• Leaves impari- or paripinnate; leaflets alternate, asymmetric at base; stipules membranous or scarious, persistent; stipels 0
• Flowers usually in axillary racemes, rarely solitary, bracteate
• Calyx scarious, deeply 5-lobed, 2-lipped, upper lip entire or emarginate, lower lip entire to 3-fid
• Petals: vexillum obovate or rounded, often emarginate, sometimes adnate to staminal tube, usually sessile; wings shortly clawed; keel incurved or straight, sometimes eared, clawed
• Stamens monadelphous; tube split above, eventually on 2 sides; anthers uniform
• Ovary sessile or stalked, 2-many-ovuled, usually submoniliform, sometimes with a cupular disc at base; style inflexed, glabrous, with small, terminal stigma
• Pod within calyx, segmented, with segments at length separating
• Seeds reniform
• x = 14 (1 report)

Nomenclature:

• Kotschya Endl.
  • Endlicher: 4 (1839)
  • Hutchinson: 475 (1964)
  • Verdcourt: 410 (1971)
  • Verdcourt: 447 (1973)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 31, restricted to tropical Africa and Madagascar
• Southern Africa: Species 2: Kotschya parvifolia (Burtt Davy) Verdc. and K. thymodora (Baker f.) Wild subsp. thymodora, the four northern provinces to KwaZulu-Natal and border of the Eastern Cape