Herbs, prostrate or climbing, or shrubs, sometimes villous
Leaves pinnately 3-foliolate, rarely 1- or 5- or 7-foliolate; stipules small, often deciduous
Flowers fascicled or lower subsolitary, in axillary racemes; bracts small, setaceous
Calyx often hairy, with campanulate tube; 2 upper lobes usually fused, lowest often the longest
Petals: vexillum ovate or round, shortly clawed; wings narrow, eared, shortly clawed, adnate to keel; keel shortly clawed
Stamens diadelphous, or vexillary stamen connate with others at middle; anthers uniform
Ovary sessile or shortly stipitate, several- to many-ovuled, often villous; style filiform, with small stigma
Pod linear to linear-oblong, straight or incurved, compressed, or rarely convex on both sides, 2-valved
Seeds small; hilum small, central, elliptic, not arillate or with a vestigial rim-aril
x = 10 (aneuploids)
Nomenclature:
Galactia P.Browne
Browne: 298 (1756)
Harvey: 235 (1862)
Verdcourt: 578 (1971)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species ± 50, mostly New World, tropical and subtropical
Southern Africa: Species 1: Galactia tenuiflora (Willd.) Wight & Arn. var. villosa (Wight & Arn.) Benth., Mpumalanga, Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal
References:
BROWNE, P. 1756. The civil and natural history of Jamaica in three parts. Published by the author, London
HARVEY, W.H. 1862. Leguminosae. Flora capensis 2
VERDCOURT, B. 1971. Flora of tropical East Africa. Leguminosae (part 4). Papilionoideae
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Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
The integrated information comes from our much-loved Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA) also known as Plants of Southern Africa (POSA), Zoological Database of Southern Africa (ZODATSA), Biodiversity Geographic Information System (BGIS), SANBI's institutional repository (Opus) and others.
The system is still under development, so you may find a few bugs/issues. If you do, please report it via the error reporting button available in various sections of the website or provide us with any useful feedback you may have via the ‘Give us feedback’ option available in the sidebar menu. You can create a free account for yourself by clicking on the user profile icon which will take you through to the login page. Here you can choose the ‘Create an account’ option or simply fill in your details if you have an account already. Having an account on Biodiversity Advisor will provide users with free access to biodiversity resources.
In future, Team SANBI will be able to log in using their day-to-day login details, BGIS users will be able to use their existing accounts and details, and general users will be able to log in using their LinkedIn profile, but for now you will need to create an account.
