e-Key v<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1699605649224_7538585889548346" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>3 - *Ca<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1699605649224_7997964649700118" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>janus
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Fabaceae - Papilionoideae - Phaseoleae - Cajaninae - *Cajanus DC.

Description:

  • Erect shrubs or shrublets with adpressed or slightly spreading silky pubescence
  • Leaves pinnately 3-foliolate; leaflets elliptic to lanceolate, resinous-glandular on lower surface; stipules small
  • Flowers yellow or lined with purple, in terminal panicles together with several subcapitate axillary racemes; bracts ovate, caducous
  • Calyx 5-lobed; lobes subequal, upper pair joined
  • Petals: vexillum orbicular, reflexed, eared; keel incurved at apex
  • Stamens with uniform anthers
  • Ovary subsessile, elongate, 4-6-ovuled, velvety hairy; style thickened above, flattened below the small, capitate stigma
  • Pod linear-oblong, inflated, obliquely acute, compressed, 2-valved, obliquely depressed between seeds with transverse grooves
  • Seeds rounded, compressed
  • x = 11 (8) (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • *Cajanus DC.
    • Candolle: 85 (1813) name conserved
    • Hutchinson: 421 (1964)
    • Verdcourt: 709 (1971)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species 2, one native to West Africa
  • Southern Africa: *Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp., Dhal or Pigeon-pea, widely cultivated throughout the tropics and partially naturalised in Namibia, the four northern provinces, Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal

References:

  • CANDOLLE, A.P. DE. 1813. Catalogus plantarum horti botanici monspeliensis. Martel, Paris & Strasbourg
  • HUTCHINSON, J. 1964. Order LEGUMINALES. The genera of flowering plants 1. Oxford University Press, Oxford
  • VERDCOURT, B. 1971. Flora of tropical East Africa. Leguminosae (part 4). Papilionoideae

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