FABACEAE  

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).

Herbs, rarely shrubs. Leaves pinnately 3-foliolate, veins of leaflets usually extended into teeth on margin; stipules entire, dentate, incised or laciniate. Flowers yellow, purple, mauve or pale lilac, in axillary racemes or heads, or sometimes subsolitary; bracts small or 0. Calyx with campanulate tube; lobes longer than tube. Petals: vexillum sessile; wings oblong, eared, clawed; keel shorter than wings, obtuse, with a linear claw. Stamens diadelphous, with vexillary stamen free; filaments with uniform anthers. Ovary sessile or subsessile, sometimes twisted, sometimes papillose, (1)- several- to many-ovuled; style variable, with oblique, subcapitate stigma. Pod spirally falcate, often spiny, often hooked, or somewhat curved and unarmed. Seeds ovoid, slightly reniform, partitioned or nonpartitioned, pale yellow to yellow-brown. x= 7, 8, 9 (high polyploidy).

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).

Annual, perennial suffrutescent herbs or small shrubs. Leaves alternate or rarely opposite, usually petiolate, digitately 3(4-8)-foliolate, rarely simple or 1-foliolate; stipules small or foliaceous, usually single at each node, less commonly paired or 0. Flowers usually yellow (often partly orange, pink or white) or blue, rarely pink, pale purple, violet or white, axillary or terminal, usually solitary, sometimes 2- or 3-nate, or in heads, or sometimes head-like racemes, often pedunculate, usually bracteate. Calyx with campanulate tube, occasionally somewhat inflated; 4 upper lobes substantially united, lowest narrower than others, rarely lobes subequal. Petals: vexillum ovate to oblong with short or long claw, sometimes with 2 cushions at upper end of claw, glabrous or hairy outside; wings sometimes shorter than keel, clawed, eared at base; keel clawed, eared at base, usually gibbous. Stamens monadelphous, unequal, usually with tube split to base, open along upper (vexillar) side, rarely much united; anthers usually unequal, 4 oblong to linear and basifixed, 5 ovate and dorsifixed, carinal one intermediate. Ovary sessile or shortly stalked, few- to many-ovuled; style curved up and tapering, occasionally hairy towards base, with minutely capitate stigma. Pod subsessile or rarely long-stipitate, flat or turgid, linear to oblong or ovate. Seeds on long funicle, suborbicular to obliquely cordiform. x= 9, 14 ( polyploidy).

Woody shrubs or shrublets, variable in habit. Leaves simple, variable, linear, lanceolate, elliptic, oblanceolate or cordate to almost round, pungent, palmately-nerved, often drying black; stipules usually present, small, persistent. Flowers usually yellow, 4-many, in terminal heads; bracts large, imbricate, clasping flowers; bracts large and conspicuous, sometimes foliaceous or petaloid; bracteoles 0. Calyx with shortly campanulate tube intruse at base; lobes longer than tube; 4 upper lobes lanceolate, acute, usually united for some distance; lower lobe longer than others, sometimes as large as vexillum, petaloid. Petals: vexillum usually elliptic-oblong, ovate to circular; keel broad with an upward-directed beak or narrow with a forwardly-directed beak, subacute. Stamens 10, diadelphous, unequal, vexillar stamen free, the other 9 connate in a dorsally open tube; anthers versatile, linear, ovate, or sometimes subsagittate. Ovary sessile or shortly stalked, few-ovuled, villous; style villous below, with small, terminal stigma. Pod coriaceous, ovate or oblong, flat, oblique, compressed, 2-valved, hairy, glabrescent. Seeds oblong-reniform, appendaged. x= 9.