Description:

• Unarmed shrubs or small trees, of diverse habit
• Leaves usually 3-foliolate and petiolate, sometimes 1-foliolate or simple, sometimes crowded on older branches; stipules free, adnate to leaf bases or 0
• Flowers usually yellow to white, in terminal racemes or in axillary condensed short shoots sometimes aggregated to form pseudoracemes or terminal heads; small bract and 2 bracteoles sometimes present
• Calyx campanulate, 2-lipped; upper lip 2-toothed, lower lip shortly 3-toothed
• Petals: vexillum suborbicular or ovate; wing obovate or oblong; keel oblong-falcate to semicircular, always curved on lower side, often slightly beaked, usually glabrous
• Stamens monadelphous
• Ovary sessile or rarely shortly stipitate; style usually curved ± in middle, sometimes convolute after anthesis and expanded beneath capitate or introrse stigma
• Pod chartaceous to slightly coriaceous, usually oblong or linear-oblong, often slightly curved, several- to many-seeded, dehiscent
• Seeds ovate-oblong or obliquely elliptic
• x = 12, 13, 23, 24, 25 (polyploidy, B-chromosomes)

Nomenclature:

• *Cytisus Desf.
  • Desfontaines: 139 (1798)
  • Hutchinson: 351 (1964)
  • Frodin & Heywood: 86 (1968)
  • Bisby: 424 (1981)
• Sarothamnus Wimm.
  • Wimmer: 278 (1832)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Tree Lucerne; several species have been introduced as fodder plants, some have become partly naturalised in the winter-rainfall area of the Cape region