Vigna

Annual or perennial herbs, climbing or prostrate, rarely short and erect. Leaves (1)3-foliolate, stipulate and stipellate; stipules varying from ovate to lanceolate or almost linear to filiform, base varying from spurred below point of attachment to cordate and median attachment with free lateral auricles. Flowers shading from white flushed with mauve to cream flushed with green or yellow; or shading from blue, lilac, mauve, purple to magenta, racemose, 1 or 2 together or fasciculate at top of axillary peduncles; bracts small, caducous. Calyx with campanulate tube; 2 upper lobes or teeth separate or connate. Petals: vexillum reflexed, from reniform to oblate, with basal, inflexed appendages and channelled claw; wings falcate-obovate, eared, clawed; keel incurved, sometimes into a somewhat spiral beak, clawed. Stamens diadelphous or monadelphous; filaments often dilated above; anthers uniform. Ovary sometimes with basal disc, sessile, with several to many ovules; style often thickened above, bearded along inner margin, with oblique or introrsely lateral stigma. Pod subterete, straight or slightly incurved, 2-valved, dehiscing spirally (in wild species). Seeds reniform or subquadrate with lateral hilum. x= 10, 11 (9, 12, 17) ( polyploidy).