Melolobium

Shrubs or undershrubs, often spinescent, glandular-villous or viscid. Leaves petiolate, digitately 3-foliolate; stipules often foliaceous, semisagittate or semicordate at base. Flowers usually small, in short, terminal spikes or racemes; bracts often foliaceous. Calyx with campanulate tube, shortly or deeply 2-lipped; upper lip bipartite; lower lip trifid or 3-toothed, glandular or hairy, rarely glabrous. Petals: vexillum with a channelled claw; keel planoconvex, sometimes gibbous, shorter than wings and vexillum, clawed; wings clawed. Stamens monadelphous; tube split to base; anthers unequal. Ovary sessile or shortly stalked, with 1 to several ovules; sometimes glandular or hairy; style incurved; stigma terminal, capitate. Pod linear or oblong, compressed, often torulose, usually glandular or villous, 2-valved. Seeds on short funicles. x= 8, 9 ( polyploidy).