Information

Annual or perennial herbs, subshrubs or dwarf shrubs.Leaves sessile or with a very short petiole, usually with 5, rarely with 3–4, leaflets (or elsewhere occasionally more); leaflets petiolulate, the lower pair at the base of the rhachis and resembling stipules; stipules reduced to dark glands, sometimes inconspicuous, or absent; stipels absent.Flowers in axillary usually pedunculate umbels with a 1–3-foliolate foliage leaf, rarely umbels reduced to one flower and resembling solitary flowers.Calyx tubular or narrowly campanulate, subequally 5-toothed or the lowest tooth longest or the teeth in 2 lips.Corolla yellow, pink, cream or white, glabrous or rarely (in Macaronesia and Morocco) the standard and (very rarely) also the wings pubescent, free from the stamens; standard ± oblong-obovate, wedge-shaped at the base with infolded thickened margins; wings clawed, the blade oblong, auriculate, laterally pouched; keel curved, pointed or beaked with free claws.Vexillary stamen free, the other 9 with the filaments united into a sheath; free parts of at least the 5 longer filaments widened at the tip.Ovary sessile or shortly stipitate, glabrous (outside the Flora Zambesiaca area sometimes strigulose or hairy), subcylindrical, multi-ovulate; style bent upwards at the base, glabrous, but papillose, rigid.Pod usually cylindrical, straight, linear, usually septate within, dehiscent into 2 valves (except in L. benoistii, from Morocco, with an indehiscent fruit, and in the Mediterranean L. edulis with the fruit dehiscent ventrally), the valves often becoming twisted.Seeds ellipsoid, subreniform or subglobular, with a small, median hilum.

Information

Annual or perennial herbs, subshrubs or dwarf shrubs.Leaves sessile or with a very short petiole, usually with 5, rarely with 3–4, leaflets (or elsewhere occasionally more); leaflets petiolulate, the lower pair at the base of the rhachis and resembling stipules; stipules reduced to dark glands, sometimes inconspicuous, or absent; stipels absent.Flowers in axillary usually pedunculate umbels with a 1–3-foliolate foliage leaf, rarely umbels reduced to one flower and resembling solitary flowers.Calyx tubular or narrowly campanulate, subequally 5-toothed or the lowest tooth longest or the teeth in 2 lips.Corolla yellow, pink, cream or white, glabrous or rarely (in Macaronesia and Morocco) the standard and (very rarely) also the wings pubescent, free from the stamens; standard ± oblong-obovate, wedge-shaped at the base with infolded thickened margins; wings clawed, the blade oblong, auriculate, laterally pouched; keel curved, pointed or beaked with free claws.Vexillary stamen free, the other 9 with the filaments united into a sheath; free parts of at least the 5 longer filaments widened at the tip.Ovary sessile or shortly stipitate, glabrous (outside the Flora Zambesiaca area sometimes strigulose or hairy), subcylindrical, multi-ovulate; style bent upwards at the base, glabrous, but papillose, rigid.Pod usually cylindrical, straight, linear, usually septate within, dehiscent into 2 valves (except in L. benoistii, from Morocco, with an indehiscent fruit, and in the Mediterranean L. edulis with the fruit dehiscent ventrally), the valves often becoming twisted.Seeds ellipsoid, subreniform or subglobular, with a small, median hilum.