Leaves sessile, digitately or palmately 3-foliolate; leaflets linear to lanceolate or occasionally ovate, glabrous or pubescent, frequently with revolute margins
Flowers yellow, solitary and axillary; bracts 2(3)
Calyx with shallow tube, truncate and intruse at base and with usually triangular lobes slightly longer than tube
Petals: vexillum rounded, plaited at base, with short claw; wings oblong, with transverse fold; keel incurved, obtusely beaked, with small, triangular pocket
Stamens 10, free or slightly connate at base; filaments dilated
Ovary sessile or shortly stalked, several-ovuled, glabrous
Pod oblong, compressed, with coriaceous valves
Seeds small, with a strophiole
x = 9 (1 report, polyploidy)
Nomenclature:
Cyclopia Vent.
Ventenat: 8 (1808)
Harvey: 6 (1862)
Phillips & Hofmeyr: 105 (1922)
Kies: 161 (1951)
Distribution & Notes:
Southern Africa: Species ± 20, Western Cape, mainly southwestern districts, extending eastwards to near Uitenhage (Eastern Cape)
References:
HARVEY, W.H. 1862. Leguminosae. Flora capensis 2
KIES, P. 1951. Revision of the genus Cyclopia and notes on some other sources of bush tea. Bothalia 6
PHILLIPS, E.P. & HOFMEYR, J. 1922. The genus Cyclopia, Vent. Bothalia 1
VENTENAT, E.P. 1808. Decas generum novorum, Parisiis. Dufart, Paris
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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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