Description:

• Shrubs, undershrubs, or sometimes herbaceous, sometimes spinescent and not very leafy
• Leaves variable, (1)3-foliolate, usually petiolate; leaflets filiform, linear, narrowly spathulate or obovate; stipules sometimes present and then conspicuous
• Flowers few to many in terminal or unilateral racemes
• Calyx usually obliquely campanulate; lobes equal or subequal, shorter than tube
• Petals: vexillum broad, reflexed with bent, channelled claw, glabrous or pubescent on outside; wings oblong or obovate, often eared, sometimes with transverse ridges, clawed; keel usually planoconvex, often gibbous, sometimes saccate, clawed
• Stamens monadelphous, with tube split to base; anthers unequal
• Ovary sessile or stalked, usually linear, several- to many-ovuled; style incurved, with minutely capitate stigma
• Pod dehiscent, many-seeded, sometimes membranous, usually tipped with persistent style
• Seeds on short funicles
• x = 9

Nomenclature:

• Lebeckia Thunb.
  • Thunberg: 139 (1800)
  • Harvey: 82 (1862)
  • Dahlgren: 255 (1963)
  • Dahlgren: 558 (1970)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species ± 35, mainly Cape region, extending into Namibia and 1 in KwaZulu-Natal: Lebeckia mucronata Benth.