Source:
SSA
Description:
Annual or perennial herbs, rarely shrubs. Leaves usually digitately 5-11(-17)-foliolate; stipules mostly linear-subulate, adnate to base of petiole. Flowers variously coloured, usually many in terminal and leaf-opposed racemes, alternate to verticillate; bracteoles often attached to calyx. Calyx deeply divided almost to base, bilabiate, 3 lower lobes, at least, largely joined. Petals: vexillum with a short claw and broad blade; wings broad, generally enveloping keel, connate at apex; keel beaked. Stamens monadelphous; anthers alternately long and short. Ovary usually sessile, 2-many-ovulate; style incurved, glabrous except for a ring of hairs beneath terminal stigma. Pod dehiscent, compressed, usually constricted between seeds. Seeds generally orbicular-rectangular to oblong-elliptic, with a sunken hilum. x = 8 (9, 10, 13) ( polyploidy).
Distribution:
Species +/- 200, most numerous in the western parts of North and South America, with a second centre in Mediterranean Europe with some extensions in the highlands of E Africa. Species of * Lupinus are extensively used in the Western Cape as a cover crop or green manure and 4 species have become naturalised.
Classification:
Add new comment