Description:

• Perennial herbs, branched from base, with slightly flexuous, ascending or procumbent stems
• Leaves subsessile to petiolate, 1-5-jugate; stipules slender, linear to linear-subulate; leaflets ± elliptic-oblong, apex obtuse to acute, sometimes retuse, midrib with 5-7 lateral nerves on each side, nerves prominent below, impressed above, looping back and not forming a marginal nerve
• Flowers mauve, in axillary racemes, rarely clusters, with peduncles sometimes longer than leaves
• Calyx usually densely hirsute, somewhat 2-lipped; tube campanulate, slightly oblique at base; lobes ovate to lanceolate, with 2 uppermost connate beyond halfway
• Petals: vexillum mainly oblong, with channelled claw and 2 ears at junction of claw and limb; wings broadly linear, clawed, sometimes eared; keel ± planoconvex in outline, clawed and sometimes eared
• Stamens monadelphous; anthers uniform
• Ovary linear; style short, hooked; stigma capitate
• Pod ± oblanceolate
• Seeds oblong-ovoid; hilum short, central; rim-aril developed, cartilaginous
• x = 10, 11 (1 report)

Nomenclature:

• Ophrestia H.M.L.Forbes
  • Forbes: 1003 (1948)
  • Verdcourt: 257 (1970)
  • Verdcourt: 524 (1971)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 13, Africa and Asia
• Southern Africa: Species 1, variable: Ophrestia oblongifolia (E.Mey.) H.M.L.Forbes, the four northern provinces, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape