Pueraria

Climbers or shrubs with woody, rarely herbaceous stems. Leaves pinnately 3-foliolate; leaflets large, ovate or rhomboid, entire, scalloped or palmately lobed; stipules caducous or not. Flowers white or mostly purplish or blue, (2)3 or 4-7 per node, in an elongate pseudoraceme; bracts narrow, early caducous; bracteoles small, subpersistent or minute and caducous. Calyx campanulate with 5 teeth; upper teeth halfway to entirely connate. Petals: vexillum appendaged with inflexed auricles; wings narrowly oblong or obovate-falcate, often adherent to the middle of the keel; keel sometimes beaked, subequal to wings. Stamens: vexillary stamen connate, at least in middle with the others, rarely quite free; anthers uniform. Ovary elongate, subsessile, many-ovuled, pubescent; style filiform or on a broadened base, glabrous except near ovary; stigma globular, short-papillose, often penicillate. Pod hairy or glabrous, elongated, 2-valved, continuous or septate within. Seeds compressed, oblong to suborbicular, minutely punctate. x= 11, 12 ( polyploidy).