e-Key v3 - Ke<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1699440100916_6792534987904977" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>y to Fab<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1699440100916_9123392163684794" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>aceae Genera
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

This key is an aggregation of all the keys under Fabaceae in which the internmediate ranks between family and genus are omitted.

Backtrack a
  • Flowers nearly always irregular
  • Petals imbricate in bud, free or some of them united
  • Seeds usually without an areole
b
  • Flowers regular
  • Petals valvate in bud, often united basally
  • Sepals usually united basally
  • Stamens as many as petals or twice as many or numerous, free or all united into a tube or to the base of the petals
  • Anthers uniform, dehiscing lengthwise, sometimes with a deciduous gland at the apex
  • Leaves bipinnate or, rarely, pinnate in indigenous species
  • Seeds normally with an areole on each face or side
Backtrack a
  • Adaxial (uppermost) petal overlapped on each side by the adjacent lateral petals (when present)
  • Sepals often free
  • Stamens 10 or fewer, free or, less often, variously united
  • Anthers uniform, rarely dimorphic, dehiscing lengthwise or by terminal pores
  • Leaves mostly pinnate or bipinnate, rarely simple or 1-foliolate
  • Seeds with radicle usually straight
b
  • Adaxial (uppermost) petal outside the adjacent lateral petals or wings and usually forming with the keel-petals an irregular corolla
  • Sepals united basally
  • Stamens 10 or rarely fewer, rarely free, most often the adaxial ones free or nearly so and the other 9 united, sometimes united into 2 groups of 5 or all united
  • Anthers mostly dehiscing lengthwise
  • Leaves very rarely bipinnate (Rhynchosia)
  • Seeds with radicle usually curved
Backtrack a
  • Plant armed with prickles or spines
b
  • Plant unarmed
Backtrack a
  • Inflorescence bicoloured, the upper part bisexual, yellow, the lower neuter, mauve, pink or white
  • Short lateral branches terminating in spines, plants otherwise unarmed
b
  • Inflorescence concolorous
  • Plants armed with recurved prickles or stipular spines, very rarely short lateral branchlets terminating in spines
Backtrack a
  • Plant armed with spine-tipped lateral shoots, recurved prickles and stipular spines 0
  • Inflorescence globose
  • Stamen filaments united basally into a tube
b
  • Plant armed with recurved prickles or stipular spines, spine-tipped lateral branchlets 0
Backtrack a
  • Flowers in globose or subglobose heads, rarely the inflorescence reduced to only 2-4 flowers per 'head'
b
  • Flowers in spikes or spiciform racemes
Backtrack a
  • Stamens as many as or twice as many as the (3)4-5(6) corolla lobes
b
  • Stamens many (± 35-200)
Backtrack a
  • Small rigid much-branched shrub with pale green to olive, cano-puberulous, substriate branches
  • Stipules spinescent, recurved, up to 3.5 mm long
  • Leaves small, each with 1 pinna pair
  • Stamens 10, the 5 opposite the petals shorter than those alternating with the petals
  • Anthers with a minute deciduous apical gland
b
  • Annual or perennial herb or small shrub
  • Stems armed with scattered prickles and usually densely hispid or setulose
  • Stipules not spinescent, persistent
  • Leaves sensitive to touch, with (1)2-14 pinnate pairs
  • Stamens 4 or 8
  • Anthers eglandular apically
  • Flowers pink or mauve
Backtrack a
  • Inflorescence reduced to 2-4 flowers
  • Flowers pink
  • Filaments shortly united into a tube, basally
b
  • Inflorescence not as above
  • Flowers mostly white, yellowish white, bright or deep yellow
  • Filaments free
Backtrack a
  • Stamens 10
b
  • Stamens many (± 35-200)
Backtrack a
  • Recurved prickles scattered along the stem
  • Pods compressed, slightly curved to falcate, at maturity the valves splitting transversely into 1-seeded segments
b
  • Straight stipular paired spines
  • Pods slightly curved or coiled, indehiscent, not segmented
Backtrack a
  • Petioles glandular
  • Stamen filaments free
  • Pods mostly dehiscent, various
b
  • Petioles eglandular
  • Stamen filaments shortly connate basally
  • Pods indehiscent, falcate or spirally coiled
Backtrack 002 a
  • Inflorescence capitate, globose or subglobose
b
  • Inflorescence elongate, spicate or racemose
Backtrack a
  • Aquatic herb with creeping, usually floating and swollen stems
  • Flowers of two sorts, bisexual in upper part of head, neuter with elongate staminodes in lower part
b
  • Tree, shrub or suffrutex, rarely herbaceous and then not aquatic
Backtrack a
  • Leaves reduced to simple, entire phyllodes
b
  • Leaves bipinnate
Backtrack a
  • Stamens 10
b
  • Stamens many to numerous (± 19-200)
Backtrack a
  • Leaves with 1 pinna pair
  • Leaflets large, 20-60 mm wide
  • Large tree up to 15 m high
b
  • Leaves with (2)3-8 pinnae pairs
  • Leaflets small, less than 5 mm wide
  • Perennial herb, suffrutex, shrub or small tree
Backtrack a
  • Anthers with conspicuous scattered hairs
  • Flowers in heads up to 18 mm in diameter
  • Shrub or small tree with densely grey-puberulous branchlets
  • Leaflets 1.5-4.0 mm wide
b
  • Anthers glabrous
  • Flowers in heads up to 8 mm in diameter
  • Perennial herb or suffrutex with subglabrous to sparingly puberulous, ± angular stems
  • Leaflets 0.8-1.5 mm wide
Backtrack a
  • Stamen filaments free
  • Central flower of inflorescence not different from the rest
b
  • Stamen filaments united basally into a tube, tube included or exserted beyond the corolla
  • Central flower of inflorescence usually differing from and often larger than the rest
Backtrack a
  • Leaflets alternate to subopposite, 7-19 mm wide, with petiolules 1.5-3.0 mm long
b
  • Leaflets opposite, very rarely alternate but then sessile and less than 2 mm wide
Backtrack a
  • Stamens 10
b
  • Stamens many to numerous (± 19-200)
Backtrack a
  • Leaf rachis with a gland at the junction of each pair of pinnae or the upper pairs
  • Large tree
b
  • Leaf rachis eglandular
  • Liane, climber, shrub, suffrutex or small tree
Backtrack a
  • Liane, climber or erect suffrutex, the latter with leaflets 7-20 mm wide
b
  • Suffrutex, shrub or small tree
  • Leaflets less than 6.5 mm wide
Backtrack a
  • Stamen filaments free
b
  • Stamen filaments united basally into a tube, tube included or scarcely exserted beyond the corolla
  • Flowers uniform
Backtrack a
  • Leaves simple, emarginate apically to deeply bilobed, sometimes with a pair of leaflets
b
  • Leaves pinnately or bipinnately compound with more than 2 leaflets, very seldom leaves reduced to green, ± terete, 'needle-like' pinna-rachillae with or without minute inconspicuous leaflets, or the rachillae laterally winged and appearing flattened, '± phyllodial', with many pairs of small leaflets
Backtrack a
  • Petals 0
  • Leaves with a single pair of leaflets
b
  • Petals 5
  • Leaves emarginate apically to deeply bilobed, occasionally with a single pair of leaflets
Backtrack a
  • Stamens (8-)10(-12)
  • Inflorescence an axillary or terminal panicle
  • Leaflets with a midrib and lateral nerves or without a midrib but with 3-6 conspicuous nerves arising from the base
  • Pods pale yellowish brown, reniform, indehiscent
  • Seeds with small sticky reddish resin glands
b
  • Stamens 20-25
  • Inflorescence a slender raceme or panicle
  • Leaflets with 7-12 prominent nerves arising from the base, without a midrib
  • Pods brown or reddish brown, obliquely semiorbicular, ovate or ovate-oblong, dehiscent or indehiscent
  • Seeds not as above
Backtrack a
  • Plants with trailing or climbing, mostly herbaceous stems arising from a large underground tuber
  • Tendrils usually present
  • Fertile stamens 2, accompanied by staminodes
  • Calyx with the 2 upper sepals partly or completely fused, the rest free
b
  • Plants growing as a shrub or small tree, seldom scandent or climbing but then woody and without tendrils
Backtrack a
  • Flowers normally unisexual and plants dioecious
  • Female flowers with the stigma sessile on the ovary, capitate, flattened-globose
  • Male flowers with 10 fertile stamens
  • Calyx turbinate with 4 or 5 short broad lobes
b
  • Flowers bisexual
  • Style elongate
  • Fertile stamens 1-10
  • Calyx spathaceous or campanulate with 5 short lobes or teeth
Backtrack a
  • Calyx spathaceous, splitting to the base down one side only, with the sepals fused or sometimes partly separated
  • Fertile stamens 1-10, sometimes accompanied by staminodes
  • Pods oblong or oblanceolate-oblong, valves thinly woody
b
  • Calyx campanulate, with 5 short teeth or lobes
  • Fertile stamens 10
  • Plants often conspicuously glandular
  • Pods semiorbicular, valves papery, with or without stalked glands
Backtrack a
  • Leaves reduced, the pinna-rachillae green, ± terete and 'needle-like', with or without minute inconspicuous leaflets, or the rachillae laterally winged and appearing flattened, '± phyllodial', with many pairs of leaflets up to 9 x 3 mm
  • Plant armed with stout spines
b
  • Leaves not reduced, pinna-rachillae not 'needle-like' or '± phyllodial'
  • Plant unarmed or armed with recurved prickles, rarely armed with spines
Backtrack a
  • Leaves bipinnate
b
  • Leaves simply pinnate
Backtrack a
  • Plant unarmed
b
  • Plant armed with prickles or spines
Backtrack a
  • Leaflets alternate
  • Flowers small (petals 2-5 mm long, white to cream-coloured or pale green)
  • Sepals open from a very early stage, leaving the petals covering the flower until anthesis
b
  • Leaflets opposite
  • Flowers usually medium to large (petals 7-32 mm long, seldom smaller, yellow, orange, red or magenta)
  • Sepals valvate or imbricate
Backtrack a
  • Flowers pedicellate
  • With narrow petals which are ± densely pubescent, at least on the margins
  • Anthers 0.5-0.75 mm long
  • Stigma minute, cup-shaped-punctiform on a narrow conical style
  • Stamen filaments pubescent or tomentose to near the apex
  • Hairs (when present) on vegetative buds and young branchlets grey-brown to yellowish
b
  • Flowers sessile
  • Petals glabrous or almost so
  • Anthers 1.5-2.0 mm long
  • Style very short, ending in a funnel-shaped stigma slit down one side
  • Stamen filaments glabrous
  • Hairs on vegetative buds, young branchlets and inflorescence axes rusty red
Backtrack a
  • Leaves imparipinnate
  • Herb or low shrub up to 0.5 m high
  • Stems, leaves and calyces with many dark sessile glands
  • Petals up to 9 mm long
b
  • Leaves paripinnate
  • Tree or large shrub
  • Petals 7-32 mm long
Backtrack a
  • Stigma broadly peltate
  • Inflorescence axes, calyces and ovaries rusty tomentose
  • Petals yellow
  • Stipules up to 14 mm long, linear-subulate with up to 7 linear, alternate lateral appendages up to 6 mm long
b
  • Stigma not broadly peltate
  • Inflorescence axes, calyces and ovaries not rusty tomentose
  • Petals yellow, pink, red or magenta
  • Stipules not as above
Backtrack a
  • Calyx lobes valvate
  • Flowers small, greenish to white
  • Spines usually branched
b
  • Calyx lobes or teeth imbricate
  • Flowers yellow, pale yellowish white, pink, red or magenta
  • Spines not branched
Backtrack a
  • Petals 2-3 mm long
  • Pods samaroid, with a basal seed-containing portion whose upper suture is greatly extended beyond the seed-containing part and is broadly winged on its lower side
b
  • Petals 6-25 mm long
  • Pods unwinged
Backtrack a
  • Plants armed with spines
b
  • Plant unarmed
Backtrack a
  • Leaves with 3 pairs of opposite leaflets
  • Inflorescence a relatively few-flowered lateral or terminal raceme
  • Petals yellow, 8-10 x 5-7 mm
  • Ovary glandular
b
  • Leaves with (3-)5-10(-12) pairs of subopposite or irregularly alternate leaflets
  • Inflorescence a short, lax panicle or many-flowered, drooping raceme
  • Petals greenish or white
  • Ovary eglandular
Backtrack a
  • Inflorescence a lax panicle
  • Pods 30-50 mm long, 9-12 mm wide, straight or almost so, dehiscent
b
  • Inflorescence a dense drooping raceme
  • Pods large, 150-300 mm long, 25-35 mm wide, usually slightly falcate but often twisting with age, indehiscent
Backtrack a
  • Bracteoles paired, valvate throughout, well developed, completely enclosing the flower bud, usually persistent
b
  • Bracteoles nonvalvate, often scale-like, often caducous or 0, seldom enclosing the flower bud, but, if so, then one or both margins of one bracteole overlapping the other, at least at the base, and the flower with only 1 petal
Backtrack a
  • Bracteoles enclosing the young flower bud but soon caducous, exposing the bud enclosed by the calyx
  • Stamen- and staminode filaments all united basally for ± half their length
  • Fertile stamens 3, alternating with 5 sterile teeth or short filaments
  • Larger petals 3, subequal, gold with red veins
b
  • Bracteoles enclosing the young flower bud and persistent below the open flower
  • Stamens not as above and more than 3 fertile
  • Petals or tepals not coloured as above
Backtrack a
  • Perianth clearly differentiated into 5 obvious petals and 5 sepals
b
  • Perianth 0 or of 1-7(-11) parts, usually 4-7 all sepaloid and of similar form, grading inwards from broader to narrower
Backtrack a
  • Petals 0 or sometimes petals present but reduced to minute, linear, inconspicuous filaments and apparently absent
b
  • Petals 1-5, well developed
Backtrack a
  • Stamens 10, filaments united basally for 1.5-3.5 mm, tube entire or split down one side
  • Calyx leathery, 4-(rarely 5-)lobed, red or scarlet, glabrous or sparingly puberulous
  • Ovary glabrous
  • Inflorescence a dense, congested, subglobose panicle, usually cauliflorous on older branches but occasionally terminal
b
  • Stamens 5-10, filaments free
  • Sepals 5, fulvous or rusty brown puberulous outside
  • Ovary densely ferruginous-hirsute
  • Inflorescence a many-flowered panicle or raceme
Backtrack a
  • Inflorescence a many-flowered panicle
  • Ovules 2
  • Pod ovoid-ellipsoid, densely brown velutinous-puberulous
b
  • Inflorescence a dense raceme
  • Ovules many
  • Pod elongated, compressed, thick and coriaceous, glabrous
Backtrack a
  • Petals 1-4
b
  • Petals 5
Backtrack a
  • Petals 1, pubescent and green outside, dark red inside, 25-45 mm long, with a long claw suddenly widening into a deeply bilobed lamina 22-31 mm wide
  • Fertile stamens usually 7 (rarely 9)
b
  • Petals 1-4, pale pink or red throughout, smaller than above and not widened above into a deeply bilobed lamina
  • Fertile stamens 10
Backtrack a
  • Anthers opening by terminal or basal pores or short slits, usually basifixed
  • Petals mostly yellow
  • Glands often present on petiole or leaf rachis
b
  • Anthers opening by longitudinal slits which are as long as the anther, usually dorsifixed
  • Petals pink, red, mauve, magenta or sometimes yellow
  • Conspicuous glands not present on petiole or rachis
Backtrack a
  • Filaments of the 3 adaxial stamens sigmoidally incurved, many times longer than their small anther
  • Filaments of other stamens straight, shorter, the anthers dehiscing by basal pores
  • Pedicels 2-bracteolate at or just above their base
  • Pod elongate, usually cylindric, indehiscent
  • Seed coat smooth, without areoles
  • Tree
b
  • Filaments of all stamens straight, either shorter or not more than twice as long as their anthers, if longer, then the anthers dehiscing by apical pores
  • Pods various, but if cylindric and indehiscent then the pedicels without bracts
Backtrack a
  • Bracteoles 0
  • Pod either indehiscent, or breaking inelastically through one or both sutures, if through both, then the valves not coiling
  • Androecium often irregular, the members tending to decrease in size from the abaxial to the adaxial side of the flower
  • Anther thecae naked along the sutures
  • Seed coat often with a closed areole on each face or margins
  • Tree, shrub or herb
b
  • Bracteoles 2
  • Pod elastically indehiscent, the valves coiling at or after dehiscence
  • Androecium virtually regular, the two cycles sometimes of different lengths but not decreasing regularly from abaxial to adaxial side of the flower
  • Anther thecae ciliolate along the sutures
  • Seed-coat without areoles
  • Usually a herb
Backtrack a
  • Petals yellow
  • Small shrub to 2 m high
  • Leaves up 12 mm long with 3 pairs of obcordate or broadly obovate to obovate-suborbicular leaflets
b
  • Petals pink, red, mauve or magenta
  • Large shrub or tree
  • Leaves much larger than above
Backtrack a
  • Inflorescence a short raceme or panicle
  • Calyx glabrous or almost so
  • Petals pink, red or scarlet
  • Ovary glabrous or almost so
b
  • Inflorescence a stout raceme up to 350 mm long
  • Sepals densely fulvous-tomentose outside
  • Petals pink, mauve or magenta
  • Ovary fulvous-tomentose
Backtrack a
  • Filaments all free from base upwards, occasionally shortly and ± equally connate at base only
  • Anthers usually uniform in size and shape
b
  • Filaments partly or almost wholly united to one another, either monadelphous in a closed tube, or diadelphous with the vexillary (adaxial) filament often free or partly so
Backtrack a
  • Calyx lobes apparent or corolla markedly papilionoid
  • Stamens (5-)10(-30)
  • Petals generally 5, rarely 1 or 0
b
  • Calyx entire in bud
  • Stamens 9-numerous
  • Petals 0-9, not much differentiated
Backtrack a
  • Leaves digitately foliolate or simple, very rarely pinnate or reduced to scales
b
  • Leaves pinnately foliolate or of only 1 leaflet and then with distinct pulvinus at apex of petiolule
Backtrack a
  • Anthers distinctly dimorphic, alternately basifixed and shorter dorsifixed
  • Leaves simple, 1-foliolate or digitately 3(-many)-foliolate, if compound, leaves generally pulvinate or with a raised leaf base, rarely distichous, never glandular-punctate
  • Fruit never jointed
b
  • Anthers ± uniform at least in size, some sometimes aborted, or if dimorphic (in Aeschynomeneae, Psoraleeae and a few Phaseoleae, by abortion in Teramnus) then leaves pinnate or glandular punctate
Backtrack a
  • Calyx lobes variously united, but not as below, or subequally lobed
  • Lowermost lobe often much shorter and narrower than upper ones
  • Flowers in terminal, rarely leaf-opposed, spikes, racemes, or heads, rarely axillary
  • Seeds rarely arillate
b
  • Upper 2 calyx lobes joined higher than lower ones, sometimes enlarged
  • Lowermost (carinal) calyx lobe generally longer or narrower than upper ones
  • Flowers mostly in heads or clusters
  • Style glabrous
  • Seeds arillate
Backtrack a
  • Filaments fused into a sheath open on upper side
b
  • Filaments fused into a closed tube
Backtrack a
  • Leaves with pulvinus 0 (stipules often adnate to petiole base) or reduced, often with a stipular ridge forming an abaxial commissure, generally distichous or crowded
  • Inflorescence axillary
  • Herb or small softly woody shrub
b
  • Leaves pulvinate, mostly free from stipules if present
Backtrack a
  • Leaves not toothed (except some Psoraleeae)
  • Nerves looped within the margin (except some Galegeae)
b
  • Leaflets ± toothed
  • Nerves extending to ± toothed margin of leaflets
  • Stipules adnate to petiole base
Backtrack a
  • Leaves generally paripinnate, ending in a tendril or bristle, rarely imparipinnate
  • Stipules free from petiole, generally foliaceous
  • Fruit 2-valved
  • Seeds lenticular to globose with ± linear hilum and no radicular lobes
  • Herb
b
  • Leaves generally ending in a leaflet or a spine, less often in a bristle
  • Stipules generally small and/or adnate to the petiole
  • Seeds with a small round hilum generally below a radicular lobe
Backtrack a
  • Filaments of all or alternate stamens dilated apically
  • Flowers 1 or 2 from axils, in heads or more often umbellate, sometimes subtended by a foliar bract
  • Compound leaves generally with at least 3 terminal leaflets conjugate, lowermost pair sometimes stipule-like, sometimes with a glandular stipule
b
  • Filaments not dilated upwards
Backtrack a
  • Fruit not jointed, generally dehiscent if long-exserted
b
  • Fruit jointed or elongated with thickened margins and hooked tip
Backtrack a
  • Ovules 2-many
  • Fruit not both 1-seeded and glandular
  • Racemes or fascicles simple with flower bracts only
b
  • Ovule 1
  • Fruit 1-seeded, glandular
  • Inflorescences compound, with more than 1 series of bracts
  • Foliage ± glandular-punctate or pustulate
Backtrack a
  • Petals differentiated, papilionoid
b
  • Petals 5, all similar, ribbon-like or spathulate
  • Fruit drupaceous or flat and curved, eglandular 1(-2)-seeded, indehiscent
Backtrack a
  • Stamens 9
  • Leaves paripinnate
  • Flowers in pseudoracemes (pedicels several at a rachis node) or axillary fascicles
  • Pods elastically dehiscent, with brown to brightly coloured seeds
b
  • Not as above
Backtrack a
  • Anthers not appendaged (if petals caducous)
b
  • Anthers apiculate or appendaged
  • Petals usually reddish and caducous
  • Biramous hairs present (often among others)
  • Normally leafy
Backtrack a
  • Anther thecae separate, sometimes reduced to terminal pores (then plant woody)
b
  • Anther thecae confluent above
  • Perennial herb with astragaloid flowers, ± glandular foliage and minute peltate scales
  • Fruit several-seeded, dehiscent or not, often muricate or bristly
Backtrack a
  • Fruit more pod-like, eglandular or woody
  • Glands, if present, generally on surface or small internal punctae
b
  • Fruit 1-seeded, often nutlet-like, small, generally glandular, with marcesent calyx
  • Foliage glandular-pustulate or -punctate
  • Never twining or large tree
  • Inflorescence axillary
  • Leaves (1-)3(-5)-foliolate
Backtrack a
  • Fruit not jointed, or if so (Aeschynomeneae), seeds more symmetrical
  • Lower petals more retractible or little interconnected and differentiated
b
  • Fruit transversely jointed, sometimes of only 1 article, or less often opening down one suture (then tertiary venation of leaflets scalariform)
  • Seeds with radicular lobe longer than cotyledonary lobe
  • Lower petals generally withering and caducous after explosive pollen release
  • Inflorescence generally compound with more than 1 series of bracts
  • Leaves pinnately 3(-11)-foliolate, generally stipellate
  • Stipules and bracts often striately nerved
Backtrack a
  • Style curved towards standard
b
  • Style straight or curved away from standard
  • Standard with a median gutter
  • Leaves digitately 3-foliolate
Backtrack a
  • Hypanthium 0
  • Intrastaminal disc generally present
  • Vexillary filament often connate medially, but free, arched and thickened to form openings at base
  • Flowers generally in pseudoracemes, sometimes in extensive panicles or clustered in axils
  • Leaves generally imparipinnate, 3-many-foliolate, leaflets generally strictly opposite and stipellate, occasionally alternate, sometimes 1-foliolate or simple
b
  • Hypanthium present, short to long
  • Intrastaminal disc generally lacking
  • Vexillary filament not flared at base of staminal tube
  • Flowers almost always arising singly if inflorescence extended
  • Leaves variously paripinnate to imparipinnate
  • Leaflets alternate to opposite, with or without stipels, sometimes 1-3-foliolate
Backtrack a
  • Leaves (1-)3-foliolate, the laterals usually markedly asymmetrical and regularly stipellate, occasionally 5-9-foliolate
  • Twining prostrate or erect herb, sometimes a shrub, liane or tree
  • Inflorescences often in many axils
b
  • Leaves 1-many-foliolate, if 3-foliolate the lateral leaflets only slightly asymmetrical
  • Tree, shrub or liane with hard wood, less often a subshrub or herb (Tephrosia generally have closely parallel nerves extending to leaflet margins, but easily confused with Phaseoleae subtribe Ophrestiinae)
  • Inflorescences aggregated towards branch ends
Backtrack a
  • Fruit not jointed, nor geocarpic
b
  • Fruit jointed or geocarpic
Backtrack a
  • Ovules generally more numerous
  • Fruit generally more pod-like even if flat and indehiscent
b
  • Ovules 1-4
  • Fruit indehiscent, the seeds generally in separate seed chambers with hard endocarp
  • Keel petals generally overlapping abaxially or, if margins adnate, flowers usually secund on the rachis, ± free from wings
  • Stamens often shortly and/or irregularly joined
Backtrack a
  • Flowers in axillary racemes (occasionally with 1 or 2 branches if on leafless shoots) or rarely strictly leaf-opposed or in axillary clusters
  • Keel petals abaxially joined (shortly in some bird-flowers)
  • Stamens three-quarters joined except some bird-flowers
  • Pods usually dehiscent, often septate internally
b
  • Flowers in terminal panicles, sometimes with supplementary axillary racemes, rarely all axillary
  • Stamens very rarely joined so high and keel petals usually overlapping abaxially
  • Fruit generally indehiscent
Backtrack a
  • Conspicuous pellucid or pustular glands on leaves, calyx, etc. or, if obscure, flowers sessile in many paired bracts
  • Pedicels without joints or bracteoles
  • Fruit without strong longitudinal nerves on sides
  • Articles several, quadrate, often ornamented with glands, crests or bristles
b
  • Pellucid or pustular glands lacking
  • Pedicels almost always articulate and/or bracteolate
Backtrack a
  • Flowers pedicellate
  • Receptacle broader than long or 0
  • Ovary generally stipitate
b
  • Flowers sessile or subsessile in axils or on a common axis (bracts and 2 bracteoles then adjacent)
  • Receptacle longer than broad, sometimes tubular
  • Ovary sessile or nearly so
  • Fruit with strong continuous longitudinal nerves on sides
Backtrack a
  • Leaves almost always imparipinnate
  • Fruit (unless globular or covered by bristles) with strong continuous nerves on sides
  • Ovary septa formed late
  • 3 lower calyx lobes discrete
  • Stamens variously united but tending to split on vexillary side first, deflexed after anthesis
b
  • Leaves paripinnate, subimparipinnate or occasionally imparipinnate
  • Articles reticulately veined
  • Ovary septa generally formed by anthesis
  • 3 lower calyx lobes discrete or largely joined in a lip
  • Stamens tending to split on carinal side first, usually 10 or 5 + 5, usually lying above the fruit
Backtrack a
  • Fruit exserted from the calyx
b
  • Fruit enclosed within the calyx
Backtrack a
  • Stipules spurred at base
  • Spur bilobed, with one side linear and longer than the other
  • Leaflets opposite, 1-nerved
b
  • Stipules not spurred at base
  • Leaflets alternate, with 2-7 basal nerves
Backtrack a
  • Leaflets 3
  • Fruit not maturing below the soil
  • Petals arising in throat of calyx tube
b
  • Leaflets 2 or 4
  • Fruit maturing below the soil, reticulate
  • Petals and stamens arising at the apex of the calyx tube
Backtrack
059
a
  • Stipules 0 or inconspicuous
  • Anthers often dimorphic
b
  • Stipules conspicuous, free from each other and from leaf
Backtrack a
  • Leaves simple
b
  • Leaves compound, rarely reduced to a single leaflet
Backtrack a
  • Calyx lobes subequal
  • Leaves with 3-several parallel nerves
  • Vexillum villous
  • Fruit linear, compressed
  • Shrub or shrublet, glabrous or sparsely villous
b
  • Calyx lobes unequal, the lower smaller and narrower than the upper
  • Leaves usually with 1 main nerve and several lateral nerves
Backtrack a
  • Fruit lanceolate or linear
  • Shrub or shrublet, ± glabrous and often glaucous
  • Leaves from orbicular to linear, sessile or subsessile
b
  • Fruit ovate, turgid
  • Perennial herb, villous
  • Stems prostrate from a woody rootstock
  • Leaves lanceolate
Backtrack a
  • Calyx ± regularly 5-toothed
b
  • Calyx not regularly 5-toothed
Backtrack a
  • Fruit linear
  • Leaves petiolate, 3-foliolate or simple or reduced to scales
b
  • Fruit semi-ovate or lanceolate, obliquely acute or obliquely rhomboid
  • Leaves in threes or fascicles, not petiolate
Backtrack a
  • Calyx with 4 upper lobes ± united in pairs, the lowest free
  • Anthers dimorphic
b
  • Calyx 2-lipped
Backtrack a
  • Keel and style curved
  • Mostly a shrublet
b
  • Keel and style straight
  • Mostly a herb
Backtrack a
  • Calyx with trifid lower lip (lateral sinuses deeper than the lower ones)
  • Fruit subtorulose, linear, flat
  • Keel longer than the vexillum
b
  • Calyx without trifid lower lip (lateral sinuses may be wider than the lower ones, but not deeper)
  • Fruit winged along the upper or both sutures, flat and indehiscent, ovate or oblong
Backtrack a
  • Stipules fused with the petiole and forming a cylindrical sheath around the stem
b
  • Stipules not sheathing the stem
Backtrack a
  • Calyx equally 5-toothed or -lobed
b
  • Calyx not equally 5-toothed or -lobed
Backtrack a
  • Anthers uniform, all bearing anthers
  • Leaves digitately 3-foliolate or only the upper 1-foliolate
b
  • Anthers alternately longer (basifixed) and shorter (dorsifixed)
Backtrack a
  • Stipules small
  • Flowers in terminal, often unilateral racemes
  • Fruit linear
b
  • Stipules conspicuous, sometimes foliaceous and toothed
  • Peduncles leaf-opposed
Backtrack a
  • Beak of keel not spirally coiled
b
  • Beak of keel and genitalia spirally coiled
Backtrack a
  • Calyx with the 4 upper teeth ± united in pairs, the lower one free
b
  • Calyx bilabiate
  • Anthers alternately dissimilar
  • Fruit linear, compressed, often tortulose
Backtrack
062
a
  • Wing petals not much broader than keel, not crimped, white or cream-coloured
  • Anthers basifixed, with apical dehiscence
  • Some branches modified as spines or climbing aids
b
  • Wing petals broadly expanded, ± crimped, bright yellow or orange-yellow
  • Anthers dorsifixed with longitudinal dehiscence
  • Branches not modified as spines or climbing aids
Backtrack a
  • Plants without uncinate hairs
  • Tertiary venation reticulate
  • Stipels 0
  • Flowers chasmogamous, not explosively dehiscent, often mixed with cleistogamous flowers
  • Vexillum with inflexed auricles more persistent than most Desmodiinae
  • Ovary 1-ovulate
b
  • Plants with characteristic uncinate hairs
  • Tertiary venation ± scalariform
  • Stipels present
  • Flowers chasmogamous, with an explosively dehiscent pollination mechanism
  • Vexillum with hardly or slightly inflexed auricles
  • Ovary (1)-many-ovulate
Backtrack a
  • Calyx glumaceous, striate, deeply divided, persistent and often partially enclosing the fruit
  • Fruit held erect, usually consisting of a number of 'stacked' terete or subterete articles
  • Leaves 1-foliolate
b
  • Calyx often membranous, not glumaceous or striate, shallowly divided, usually inconspicuous in fruit
  • Fruit mostly held away from erect
  • Leaves (1)3(5)-foliolate
Backtrack a
  • Stipules stramineous, striate, erect or spreading but never sharply recurved and velutinous
  • Fruit distinctly jointed, breaking up into individual articles
b
  • Stipules mostly sharply recurved, dark brown adaxially, silver-velutinous abaxially
  • Fruit splitting into 2 valves
Backtrack
062
a
  • Style glabrous, but stigma sometimes penicillate (short, uniform hairs all round)
  • Pods not as below
b
  • Style bearded (sometimes just a tuft of hairs below stigma on one side)
  • Claws of keel largely joined
  • Pods generally inflated (sometimes bladdery), if compressed, generally membranous, with sutures intruding or not, but without a longitudinal septum
Backtrack a
  • Pod nerves oblique, closely parallel, raised at maturity, confluent towards placental margin
  • Vexillary filament connate with others
  • Keel blades not auriculate
  • Leaflet nerves extending to margin
b
  • Pod nerves transverse, confluent over middle part of valves, fine or inconspicuous
  • Vexillary filament generally free
  • Keel blades generally auriculate
  • Leaflet nerves usually looped within the margin or inconspicuous
Backtrack a
  • Perennial herb
  • Unarmed
  • Leaflets many
b
  • Rigid much-branched shrub
  • Armed with axillary spines
  • Leaves 1-foliolate
Backtrack a
  • Style bearded with hairs on the upper (adaxial) face
  • Fruit membranous-bladdery, inflated
b
  • Style bearded around the stigma
  • Fruit membranous, slightly inflated or compressed
Backtrack a
  • Leaves 5-17-foliolate, palmate, or leaves simple and large (most over 30 × 10 mm)
  • Keel strongly beaked
  • Wings generally adnate at apex
b
  • Leaves 1-3-foliolate or leaves simple and smaller
  • Keel obtuse, rarely slightly beaked
  • Wings free at apex
Backtrack a
  • Plant spiny
b
  • Plant not spiny
Backtrack a
  • Leaves simple or 1-foliolate, sometimes very small
b
  • Leaves 3-foliolate
Backtrack a
  • Calyx split to the base adaxially
b
  • Calyx not split to the base
Backtrack a
  • Calyx nearly as long as the keel
  • Plant often herbaceous
b
  • Calyx with short teeth and not as long as keel
  • Plant always a shrub
Backtrack a
  • Pods 3-5 mm wide, erect, longitudinally ridged
  • Leaflets often dentate
  • Vexillary (adaxial) stamen completely united with others into a closed tube
  • Corolla darkly veined when dry
b
  • Pods less than 3 mm wide, erect, patent or reflexed, not as above
  • Leaflets never dentate
  • Vexillary (adaxial) stamen free from others or united with them only at base
  • Corolla not darkly veined when dry
Backtrack a
  • Keel (and usually dorsal surface of standard) hairy
  • Upper margin of the keel with a fringe of hairs
  • Standard mostly broad at the base, tapering suddenly to a short claw
  • Keel with lateral spurs, not prolonged-rostrate at the apex
b
  • Keel (and usually dorsal surface of standard) glabrous
  • Standard narrow at the base, tapering gradually to the claw
  • Keel with lateral pockets (spurs 0), often prolonged-rostrate at the apex
Backtrack a
  • Style short, thick
  • Stigma discoid
  • Fruiting pedicels mostly over 2 mm long, ± patent
  • Pods often held at ± a right angle
  • Bracts persistentI
  • Inflorescence lax in bud
b
  • Style narrow, tapering to an oblique or capitate stigma
  • Fruiting pedicels rarely over 2 mm long, reflexed (as are pods)
  • Bracts caducous
  • Inflorescence dense in bud
Backtrack a
  • Leaves digitately 3-foliolate
  • Stamens in a closed tube
  • Bracteoles present
b
  • Leaves simple
  • Stamens in an open sheath
  • Bracteoles 0
Backtrack a
  • Keel petals not laterally appendaged
  • Flowers mostly yellow
  • Anthers ± equal in length
  • Flowers in terminal heads or clusters
b
  • Keel petals gibbous on one side or with spur
  • Anthers dimorphic
  • Flowers small
Backtrack a
  • Calyx lobes unequal, lowest petaloid and large
  • Keel narrow, slightly falcate, with a forwardly directed beak
  • Leaves completely sessile
b
  • Calyx lobes subequal, not petaloid
  • Keel obtuse or with an upwardly directed beak
  • Leaves with a short petiole
Backtrack a
  • Vexillary stamen free, joined part of the stamen usually longer than the free part
b
  • Vexillary stamen joined with others, the free part usually longer than the joined part
Backtrack a
  • Leaflets and calyx eglandular
b
  • Leaflets and calyx generally with yellowish gland-dots
  • Bracteoles 0
  • Style slender below, hardened and a little thickened distally, glabrous
  • Inflorescence not nodose
Backtrack a
  • Style generally terete and unbearded (sometimes a few hairs below the stigma), occasionally coiled in Erythrininae, sometimes bearded or flattened in Clitoriinae but then petals less complex
  • Hila rarely covered with tissue
b
  • Style with distinctive expansion, flattening, coiling or specialised hairs, or if rarely unbearded as well as terete then petals elaborate with appendages on standard and keel petals adaxially joined
  • Hila usually covered with spongy tissue
Backtrack a
  • Flowers generally resupinate
  • Calyx naked inside
  • Style narrow or expanded to naked, penicillate or bearded in distal part
  • Petals often hairy
  • Leaflets 3, 1 or 5-9, with minute hooked hairs
b
  • Flowers not resupinate or, if so, then differing in other respects
Backtrack a
  • Standard silky hairy outside, rather small, without appendages inside
  • Seeds smooth, with a prominent aril
  • Inflorescence not or slightly nodose
b
  • Standard glabrous, or if hairy then inflorescence generally nodose or flowers much modified
Backtrack a
  • Flowers mostly adapted to pollination by bees or, if bird-flowers, then petals subequal in length
b
  • Flowers mostly adapted to pollination by birds or bats, the petals generally unequal in length, the fertile parts loosely housed or exserted, sometimes with small bee-type flowers but then either style coiled or flowers in extensive panicles and pod samaroid
Backtrack a
  • Inflorescence generally nodose, occasionally paniculate or axillary and few-flowered
  • Seeds diverse, with short to long hilum
b
  • Inflorescence not or scarcely nodose (sometimes branched in Pueraria)
  • Seeds smooth, granular or rough, with short hilum
Backtrack a
  • Ovules 4 or more
  • Arils often prominent
b
  • Ovules 2, rarely 3
  • Arils usually inconspicuous
Backtrack a
  • Fruit ± compressed, acuminate, marked between the seeds with oblique, depressed lines
b
  • Fruit turgid, without depressions
Backtrack a
  • Calyx lobes enlarged and membranous or scarious after flowering, the lowest largest
  • Sruit falcate-ovate, enclosed by the calyx
b
  • Calyx lobes not enlarged after flowering
Backtrack a
  • Fruit turgid
  • Leaves digitately 3-foliolate or 1-foliolate
  • Flowers spicate-racemose or paniculate
b
  • Fruit compressed
  • Flowers usually several in racemes
Backtrack a
  • Stems usually twining or trailing
  • Funicle of the seed attached in the middle of the hilum
b
  • Stems usually stiff and erect
  • Funicle of the seed attached at the end of the linear hilum
Backtrack a
  • Calyx not strongly 2-lipped
  • Upper calyx lobes completely united (calyx appears 4-lobed)
  • Fruit narrowly linear, straight or curved, many-seeded
  • Usually a herb or subshrub, prostrate, climbing or erect
b
  • Calyx 2-lipped, the upper lip large, entire or 2-lobed, the lower lip small
  • Fruit large, linear-oblong to oblong, usually with longitudinal ribs close to upper margin
  • Usually a woody climber or liane
Backtrack a
  • Carina shorter than vexillum
  • Anthers uniform
  • Fruit glabrescent, often moniliform
  • Stipels glandular or, rarely, coriaceous
  • Usually a tree or shrub
b
  • Carina exceeding vexillum
  • Anthers alternately dorsifixed and basifixed, the shorter often bearded
  • Fruit with indumentum of irritant hairs
  • Stipels nonglandular
  • Woody liane or climber
Backtrack a
  • Stamens alternately aborted
  • Persistent style of the fruit turned up into a hook
b
  • Stamens all fertile
  • Pod without a hook
Backtrack a
  • Claws of the wings and keel longer than the blade
  • Seeds with a smooth surface without a scarious flap
  • Calyx thin and glabrous on the inside, translucent
  • Upper calyx lobes united
b
  • Claw of the wings and keel shorter than the blade
  • Seeds usually with a rough surface
  • Hilum often with a scarious flap
  • Calyx lobes often distinct
Backtrack a
  • Vexillary stamen usually united with the others
  • Flowers small, white
  • Inflorescence lax, 20-150-flowered
  • Upper calyx teeth united
b
  • Vexillary stamen free below but connate above with the rest
  • Flowers usually purple
  • Inflorescence elongate, with the groups of flowers arising from very conspicuous nodes
  • Upper calyx teeth distinct
Backtrack a
  • Stigma lateral, oblique
  • Style filiform, coiled with 3-5 or more revolutions
b
  • Stigma terminal
Backtrack a
  • Stigma bilabiate
  • Stamens monadelphous
b
  • Stigma not bilabiate
  • Adaxial stamen usually free
Backtrack a
  • Pollen grains tuberculate or spinulose, zonitriporate
  • Style tenuous throughout or slightly widened above
  • Standard with narrow, elongated appendages
  • Wings very narrow, flowers mostly yellow or orange
  • Ovary 3-9-ovulate
b
  • Pollen grains not spinulose or, if somewhat granulate, then other characters not as above
  • Flowers often shades of red, violet, purple or blue
Backtrack a
  • Style not narrowed into a thin waist
b
  • Style of two parts, an upper, incrassated part and a basal, tenuous part
Backtrack a
  • Style conspicuously flattened throughout and blade-like, slightly less than at right angles to the ovary
  • Staminal appendages 2
b
  • Style not conspicuously flattened throughout
Backtrack a
  • Style 2-winged, glabrous
  • Stigma ± penicillate
  • Keel somewhat rounded
b
  • Style not winged, with a line of hairs along inner margin
  • Stigma not penicillate
  • Keel sharply angled in middle
  • Pods usually verrucose along margins
Backtrack a
  • Style with apex flattened into a tenuous, spatulate portion, stigmatose along the terminal edge
b
  • Style not flattened (except in Dolichos junodii)
Backtrack a
  • Style strongly curved near base and apex in same direction, the middle part gently curved in opposite direction
b
  • Style not so complicatedly curved
Backtrack a
  • Style with a distinct, bulging, eccentric callus at its junction with the ovary
b
  • Style without prominent callus at junction with ovary
  • Stigma terminal, usually ringed with hairs
Backtrack a
  • Keel not so strongly curved
  • Stigma terminal, scarcely penicillate
  • Flowers on a nodulate rachis
b
  • Keel incurved through 180-360°
  • Stigma terminal, penicillate, with simple or branched hairs
  • Flowers in axillary fascicles, usually precocious
Backtrack a
  • Leaflets many
  • Flowers in extended racemes
b
  • Leaflets 1-3
  • Flowers 1 or 2(-4)
Backtrack a
  • Leaves digitately or palmately 3-foliolate
  • Calyx lobes longer than tube, imbricate
  • Flowers solitary, axillary
  • Wings with a transverse fold
  • Fruit oblong, compressed
b
  • Leaves simple or unifoliolate
  • Calyx lobes longer than tube
  • Flowers 1-2(3-4)-nate on axillary peduncles
  • Wings with curved, linear claw
  • Fruit ovoid or oblong
Backtrack a
  • Flowers purple, pink or white
  • Style base glabrous
b
  • Flowers yellow
  • Style base pubescent
Backtrack
062
a
  • Flower pedicel subtended by a distinctive, lobed cupulum
b
  • Flower pedicel never subtended by a distinctive, lobed cupulum
Backtrack a
  • Calyx lobes covered with black stubby hairs on inner surface, tube prominently ribbed and encrusted with glands
  • Internal secretory cavities present in leaflets
b
  • Calyx lobes not covered with black stubby hairs on inner surface, tube weakly ribbed and sparsely glandular
  • Internal secretory cavities 0 in leaflets
Backtrack a
  • Fruit ovoid, with conspicuous black glandular warts when mature
b
  • Fruit never with black glandular warts
Backtrack a
  • Hard-wooded tree and shrub
  • Stipules spinescent, usually paired
  • Seeds not in distinct compartments
b
  • Upright herb, rarely tall and subshrubby
  • Stipules not spinescent
  • Fruit septate
Backtrack
056
a
  • Leaves reduced to 1 leaflet (unifoliolate)
  • Fruit linear or falcate
b
  • Leaves with 2 or more leaflets
Backtrack a
  • Fruit or pod moniliform, stalked
  • Flowers white, yellow or rarely blue-violet, in racemes or leafy panicles
b
  • Fruit not moniliform
Backtrack a
  • Fruit broadly linear, ± winged or margined
  • Flowers yellow
b
  • Fruit not winged
  • Flowers mainly blue and pink
Backtrack a
  • Vexillum much broader than other petals
  • Racemes simple, pendulous
  • Flowers blue
  • Fruit linear to oblong, compressed
b
  • Vexillum only slightly broader than other petals
  • Racemes paniculate
  • Fruit stalked, drupe-like
Backtrack a
  • Petals 0
  • Leaflets (7)11-28 per leaf, with many pellucid glands
  • Stamen filaments confluent basally with the hypanthium (calyx tube)
b
  • Petals 1, large
  • Leaflets (3)5-11 per leaf, without pellucid glands
  • Stamen filaments free or nearly so
  • Disc and hypanthium 0 (filaments arising around base of gynophore or ovary)
Backtrack
075
a
  • Herb or undershrub, never scandent
b
  • Robust shrub or tree, sometimes scandent
Backtrack a
  • Legume contorted, membranous, subindehiscent
  • Leaves digitately foliolate
  • Stipules small or 0
  • Flowers 2 or 3 in leaf axils
b
  • Legume coriaceous or rigid
Backtrack a
  • Legume 2-few-seeded
  • Leaves usually pinnately trifoliolate
b
  • Legume 1-seeded
  • Leaves unifoliolate
  • Leaflet obcordate
Backtrack a
  • Leaves imparipinnate, stipulate
  • Leaflets opposite
b
  • Leaves imparipinnate, stipulate
  • Leaflets alternate or subopposite
Backtrack a
  • Leaflets stipellate
b
  • Leaflets not stipellate
Backtrack a
  • Fruit winged along the upper or both sutures
  • Calyx truncate or with very short or obsolete teeth
b
  • Fruit not winged, flat and compressed, membranous or coriaceous
Backtrack a
  • Flowers white, pink or purple, in dense panicles, with most flowers reaching maturity
b
  • Flowers orange, in terminal pseudoracemes, with only one flower per node reaching maturity
Backtrack a
  • Fruit woody, soon dehiscent
b
  • Fruit coriaceous or membranous, never woody, indehiscent or tardily dehiscent
Backtrack a
  • Wing petals free from keel
  • Keel petals free from each other
  • Flowers in terminal panicles
  • Fruit margined with a wing on each side
b
  • Wing petals adnate to keel
Backtrack a
  • Leaves sometimes only pinnately 3-foliolate or rarely 1-foliolate
  • Fruit broadly ovate to linear-oblong
b
  • Leaves with 6 pairs of leaflets, silvery pubescent
  • Fruit linear
Backtrack a
  • Petals becoming dry and persistent after flowering
  • Filaments mostly dilated upwards
  • Fruit indehiscent
b
  • Petals falling after flowering
  • Filaments not dilated
Backtrack a
  • Flowers in slender racemes
  • Ovules few
  • Fruit indehiscent or tardily 2-valved
b
  • Flowers in heads or short racemes or rarely solitary
Backtrack a
  • Fruit straight or curved, mostly linear
b
  • Fruit mostly spirally coiled, scarcely dehiscent, mostly prickly