Leaves sessile, digitately 3-foliolate, sometimes almost sessile; stipules linear to foliaceous or lacking
Flowers yellow, white or purplish, in congested or lax, axillary or terminal racemes or spikes, bracteate
Calyx hairy, 5-lobed; tube campanulate; 4 upper lobes in pairs, lowest the narrowest
Petals: vexillum usually shortly clawed, ± elliptic to oblong-obovate; wings obliquely obovate or oblong, clawed, usually transversely ridged; keel straight with relatively small limb or gibbous, clawed
Stamens monadelphous, unequal; tube split to base; anthers subequal
Ovary sessile, several- to many-ovuled, hairy; style straight with terminal or suboblique stigma
Pod sessile, ovate- or oblong-lanceolate, somewhat laterally compressed, 2-valved, beaked, villous
Seeds 1-many, with short funicle
Nomenclature:
Pearsonia Dümmer
Dümmer: 353 (1912)
Polhill: 383 (1974)
Phaenohoffmannia Kuntze
Kuntze: 940 (1891)
Pleiospora Harv.
Harvey: 51, t. 81 (1859)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species ± 7, Africa; mostly southern Africa
Southern Africa: The four northern provinces, E Free State, Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal
References:
DÜMMER, R.A. 1912. Pearsonia, a new genus of Leguminosae. Journal of Botany, British and Foreign 50
KUNTZE, C.E.O. 1891. Revisio generum plantarum 2. A. Felix, Leipzig
POLHILL, R.M. 1974. A revision of Pearsonia Dümmer (Leguminosae-Papilionoideae). Kew Bulletin 29
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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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