Trees or scandent shrubs, armed with recurved prickles on stems and leaves
Leaves bipinnate; leaflets opposite, many, small; stipules small or obsolete
Inflorescences of terminal and axillary, often paniculately aggregated, racemes; bracts small, soon deciduous
Flowers bisexual, irregular
Calyx with shallow, basin-shaped tube and 5 imbricate lobes longer than tube
Petals 5, imbricate, sometimes slightly unequal
Stamens 10, sometimes unequal, longer than petals, usually villous at base; anthers ± quadrate
Ovary free, very shortly stipitate, 1-ovuled; style short or elongated and clavate, with truncate or concave, terminal stigma
Pod red, sessile, compressed and samaroid, indehiscent, seed-bearing base obliquely ovate or elliptic, upper part produced into an oblique-oblong or falcate, membranous wing
Seeds pendulous, compressed, without endosperm
Nomenclature:
Pterolobium R.Br. ex Wight & Arn.
Wight & Arnott: 283 (1834) name conserved
Salt: 64 (1814) name only
Hutchinson: 261 (1964)
Brenan: 40 (1967)
Ross: 114 (1977)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species ± 10, cosmopolitan in tropical regions
Southern Africa: Species 1: Pterolobium stellatum (Forssk.) Brenan, Northern Province and Mpumalanga
References:
BRENAN, J.P.M. 1967. Flora of tropical East Africa. Leguminosae (part 2). Caesalpinioideae
HUTCHINSON, J. 1964. Order LEGUMINALES. The genera of flowering plants 1. Oxford University Press, Oxford
ROSS, J.H. 1977. Fabaceae. Caesalpinioideae. Flora of southern Africa 16,2
SALT, H. 1814. A voyage to Abyssinia, Appendix. Rivington, London
WIGHT, R. & ARNOTT, G.A.W. 1834. Prodromus florae peninsula Indiae orientalis 1. Parbury, Allen & Co., London
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Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
The integrated information comes from our much-loved Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA) also known as Plants of Southern Africa (POSA), Zoological Database of Southern Africa (ZODATSA), Biodiversity Geographic Information System (BGIS), SANBI's institutional repository (Opus) and others.
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