Rhynchosia
Source:
SSA
Synonym(s):
Chrysoscias E.Mey.: 139 (1836).
Description:
Herbs or undershrubs, twining, prostrate or rarely erect, sometimes with woody rootstock. Leaves usually pinnately 3-foliolate, sometimes digitately (1)3-foliolate, or pinnate, or bipinnate; leaflets usually with very conspicuous resinous gland-dots beneath, stipulate. Flowers frequently yellow, lined with brownish purple, in racemes, axillary umbels, dense subsessile clusters, or solitary; bracts caducous. Calyx usually hairy, with short, campanulate tube, 5-lobed; lobes usually longer than tube; 2 upper connate, often more so than others. Petals: vexillum usually eared at base, with short channelled claw; wings +/- oblong, eared, with straight or curved claw; keel usually gibbous, sometimes saccate, clawed. Stamens diadelphous, with vexillary filament often kneed; anthers uniform. Ovary subsessile, linear, lanceolate or ovate, frequently with basal, cupular disc, sometimes glandular, usually with (1)2 ovules; style linear, subterete, or filiform, usually hairy on lower portion, curved and thickened in upper portion and with terminal, capitate stigma. Pod almost circular to narrowly oblong, compressed, often falcate, frequently glandular and velvety. Seeds black or brown, rarely dark blue. x= 11 (aneuploids).
Distribution:
Species +/- 200, cosmopolitan throughout the tropics and subtropics; +/- 70 in sthn Afr., widespread.