Zornia

Erect or prostrate herbs, mainly perennial. Leaves digitately 2-4-foliolate; leaflets often pellucid-dotted; stipules subfoliaceous. Flowers yellow or orange-yellow, solitary or in interrupted spikes; spikes pedunculate, axillary or terminal; bracts enclosing flowers. Calyx membranous, 2 upper lobes connate, 2 lateral small, lowest subequal to upper lip. Petals: vexillum clawed; wings clawed; keel incurved, subrostrate, clawed. Stamens monadelphous, united into a column below, which at maturity is circumscissile and upper part is shed with petals, lower tubular part remaining to protect ovary; anthers unequal, 5 larger subbasifixed, 5 smaller versatile. Ovary sessile; several- to many-ovuled; style filiform, with small, terminal stigma. Pod sessile, compressed, with upper suture nearly straight, lower deeply sinuate, 2-15-jointed, breaking into smooth or spiny, indehiscent segments. Seeds ovoid, mostly black or dark brown, without appendages. x= 10, 11.