e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1699606889126_018023135223528497" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Co<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1699606889126_31163032454264306" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>rdyla
SANBI Flora Keys Logo
Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Fabaceae - Papilionoideae - Swartzieae - Cordyla Lour.

Description:

  • Unarmed deciduous trees, rarely shrubby
  • Leaves imparipinnate; leaflets alternate or rarely subopposite, oblong, shortly stalked, many-jugate, with many pellucid dots or streaks; stipules caducous
  • Flowers bisexual, sometimes male, in short, axillary racemes; bracts persistent
  • Calyx with campanulate tube, 3-lobed
  • Petals 0
  • Stamens many (± 23-126), arising in throat of calyx tube; filaments connate towards base; anthers small, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits; connective glandular apically
  • Ovary on long stalk, ellipsoid, with 2-few ovules; style with terminal, simple stigma
  • Fruit stalked, drupaceous, ellipsoid to subglobose, sometimes as large as a tennis ball, yellow when ripe, 1- or 2-seeded
  • Seeds large, thin-walled, not arillate
  • x = 10 (1 report)

Nomenclature:

  • Cordyla Lour.
    • Loureiro: 411 (1790)
    • Brenan: 221 (1967)
    • Ross: 133 (1977)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species 5, Africa and Madagascar
  • Southern Africa: Species 1: Cordyla africana Lour.; warm valleys in Mpumalanga, Swaziland and N KwaZulu-Natal

References:

  • BRENAN, J.P.M. 1967. Flora of tropical East Africa. Leguminosae (part 2). Caesalpinioideae
  • LOUREIRO, J. DE 1790. Flora cochinchinensis. Academy, Lisbon
  • ROSS, J.H. 1977. Fabaceae. Caesalpinioideae. Flora of southern Africa 16,2