Compilation
Parochetus africanus

Creeping prostrate herb, forming ground cover. Stems slender, rooting at the nodes, lacking tubers, glabrous to sparsely pilose. Leaves digitately 3-foliolate; leaflets up to 4 cm long and wide, obovate, emarginate at the apex, cuneate at the base, margins usually coarsely toothed towards the apex, with a distinct midrib and 4 primary lateral nerves on each side, green blotched with white in the centre, glabrous above, subglabrous to pilose beneath; petiole 3–30 cm long, pilose; stipules 6–10 mm long, ovate, acute, scarious. Inflorescence 1–2(3)-flowered; peduncle 1.5–25 cm long, ascending; bracts similar to stipules but smaller. Flowers sweetly scented, on pedicels 1.5–6 cm long, reflexed in fruit. Calyx c. 7 mm long, the 2 upper lobes connate almost to their tips, the lateral lobes triangular-lanceolate, the lowest lobe longer than the 2 lateral, glabrous to sparsely pilose. Corolla generally pale blue (rarely white), glabrous; standard 12–18 mm long, broadly ovate-elliptic, emarginate, contracted at the base into a short claw; wings c. 13 mm long, oblong-ovate, the auricle only 0.5–1.5 mm (2.5–4 mm in P. communis) long; keel c. 10 mm long, subangular about the middle of the blade (upcurved near the tip in P.communis), acute, almost straight along the upper margin, darker blue at the tip. Stamens glabrous. Ovary glabrous; style slender, glabrous; stigma minute, capitate. Pod 15–25 × 4–5 mm, narrowly oblong, shortly beaked, glabrous or rarely pilose, tardily dehiscent or sometimes forced open by seeds germinating inside. Seeds 2–2.5 × 1.8–2 mm, slightly reniform, brown, sometimes mottled darker.