Description:

• Perennial herbs, erect or prostrate, with subsimple stems, sometimes with tuberous root up to 600 mm in diameter
• Leaves pinnately 3-foliolate; leaflets sometimes lobed, often apiculate, hairy; stipules lanceolate
• Flowers in few- to many-flowered racemes, ebracteate
• Calyx hairy, with campanulate tube, 5-lobed; lobes longer than tube, 2 upper lobes united further than rest, lowest sometimes 2-lobed
• Petals: vexillum eared at base, with linear, often channelled claw; wings oblong, slightly adnate to keel, eared, clawed; keel planoconvex, with linear claw, sometimes eared
• Stamens diadelphous or monadelphous; anthers equal
• Ovary sessile, linear, with few to several ovules, hairy; style somewhat linear, curved, with a boss or other thickening at base; style with terminal, capitate stigma
• Pod oblong, septate, sometimes densely tomentose
• Seeds elliptic, dark brown with white hilum
• x = 11

Nomenclature:

• Neorautanenia Schinz
  • Schinz: 35 (1899)
  • Hutchinson: 441 (1964)
  • Verdcourt: 388 (1970)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 3, Africa
• Southern Africa: Species 2: Neorautanenia amboensis Schinz and N. ficifolius (Benth.) C.A.Sm., widespread except in Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and Cape region