Compilation
Aeschynomene mearnsii

Shrubby aromatic herb or small shrub, 0.6–3 m. tall, usually erect but rarely straggling. Stems soft at the base, pubescent to hispid with yellow often viscid tubercular-based hairs, sometimes glabrous, often reddish. Leaves sometimes sensitive, (10–)18–68-foliolate; leaflets linear to linear-oblong, 0.2–1.2 cm. long, 1–2.5 mm. wide, rounded to slightly emarginate and with a deciduous bristle at the apex, obliquely rounded at the base, subentire or very finely serrulate, margins often ciliolate, glabrous; venation often obscure; petiole and rhachis 1–8(–11.5) cm. long, glabrescent to hairy; petiolules obsolete; stipules lanceolate, straight, spurred, 0.6–2 cm. long, 2–3 mm. wide, at length deciduous, veined. Inflorescences axillary, 1 (rarely 2–4)-flowered; rhachis 5–6 cm. long; peduncle 0.5–5 cm. long; pedicels 0.7–1.5(–3 in fruit) cm. long; upper bract sterile, ovate, 3–6 mm. long, acuminate; lower bract or bracts ovate, 2–4 mm. long, sometimes acuminate, amplexicaul; bracteoles ovate-lanceolate, 3–7 mm. long, 1–2 mm. wide, acuminate, mostly ciliate. Calyx glabrescent to hairy, 2-lipped, the lips oblong, subequal, 0.6–1.8 cm. long, 3–8 mm. wide, one entire or rarely 2-fid, the other entire or rarely 2–3-fid. Standard orange-yellow to orange, sometimes streaked with crimson, rounded, 0.8–3.3 cm. long and wide, glabrous; wings and keel greenish, speckled or lined with purple, the petals of the latter bristly and laciniate along their lower margins. Pods linear, straight or rarely curved, 3–10 cm. long excluding the 0.4–1.2 cm. stipe, (4–)6–28-jointed, glabrous to densely hairy, the margins straight; articles oblong, 3–6 mm. long, 4–7 mm. wide, compressed, smooth. Seeds brown or purplish-brown, irregularly oblong, produced slightly near the small eccentric hilum, longest dimension 3.8–4.5 mm., shorter dimension 2.8–3 mm., 1.5–1.7 mm. thick. Fig. 55.