Small shrubs or perennial herbs, often sticky with exudate from small surface glands; branches sometimes spine-tipped. Leaves digitately 3-foliolate, sometimes crowded on short shoots; leaflets usually small and linear-oblanceolate; stipules semi-sagittate or semi-cordate with a lateral attachment. Flowers in terminal often spine-tipped racemes, sometimes 1-flowered at the base of the spine; bracts narrow to broad; bracteoles similar and a little smaller. Calyx nearly as long as the corolla, 2-lipped; upper lobes separate or somewhat united; lower lip 3-fid; standard spathulate to subcircular with a moderately developed claw; keel shortly half oblong-elliptic, apically rounded, the claw more than half as long as the blade. Fruit pod subsessile, narrowly oblong to ovate-oblong, often slightly curved, the longer pods impressed between the seeds, dehiscent.Seeds rounded, with a small hilum. Worldwide: 15 species in southern Africa. Botswana: 3 taxa. |
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