Description:

• Annual or perennial herbs, undershrubs, or shrubs
• Leaves subimparipinnate; leaflets few to many; stipules slender
• Flowers mostly yellow, often lined with purple, bracteate, usually axillary, solitary or racemose
• Calyx subequally lobed or 2-lipped
• Petals: vexillum shortly clawed or sessile, sometimes with 2 pockets at base; wings eared, clawed; keel various
• Stamens monadelphous; staminal tube sometimes split into 2 groups of 5, rarely diadelphous; anthers uniform
• Ovary stalked, 2-28-ovuled, sometimes pubescent, sometimes with hairs from papillose base; style incurved or falcate, with terminal stigma
• Pod linear or elliptic, often constricted into 2-many segments; segments round, elliptic or rectangular, flat or slightly convex, smooth or tuberculate, mostly indehiscent
• Seeds oblong, reniform or lunate, sometimes slightly beaked
• x = 10 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Aeschynomene L.
  • Linnaeus: 713 (1753)
  • Harvey: 225 (1862)
  • Verdcourt: 364 (1971)
  • Verdcourt: 370 (1973)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species over 150, mainly Africa and South America in tropical and subtropical parts
• Southern Africa: Species ± 10, Namibia, the four northern provinces to KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape border