Fabaceae - Papilionoideae - Phaseoleae - Clitoriinae - *Clitoria L.
Description:
Climbing or erect herbs or shrubs, rarely trees
Leaves pinnately 3-9-foliolate, more rarely 1-foliolate; stipules and stipels present
Flowers mostly blue, red or white, in racemes, or solitary or paired, axillary, bracteate; upper pairs of bracts connate
Calyx 5-lobed; upper 2 lobes joined at base
Petals: vexillum large, rounded, erect, emarginate, without appendages
Stamens with vexillary one free or ± joined to the bundle; anthers almost uniform or 5 dorsifixed alternating with 5 subbasifixed
Ovary stalked, 2-many-ovuled; style elongated, incurved, bearded inside at slightly dilated apex with small terminal stigma
Pod linear-oblong, compressed, sometimes longitudinally ribbed, filled with soft tissue but not septate
Seeds subglobose or ellipsoid, compressed
x = 8 (6, 7) (aneuploids, polyploidy)
Nomenclature:
*Clitoria L.
Linnaeus: 753 (1753)
Hutchinson: 446 (1964)
Verdcourt: 515 (1971)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species ± 70, pantropical, mostly neotropical
Southern Africa: Species 1: *Clitoria ternatea L., becoming naturalised in parts of N Namibia and Mpumalanga, including the Kruger National Park
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
VERDCOURT, B. 1971. Flora of tropical East Africa. Leguminosae (part 4). Papilionoideae
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