Flora of North America species comparison

of the latter are characterized as shrubs or creeping herbs, the stems with long, yellow-brown, spreading hairs (versus shorter, more appressed hairs in subsp. incana), inflorescence bracts usually 4–10 (versus 1–3) mm, and calyx lobes pilose (versus glabrate).

erect, ascending, spreading, decumbent, or prostrate, glabrous or pubescent.

alternate, palmately compound or unifoliolate;

stipules present or absent, usually persistent, filiform to foliaceous;

petiolate or subsessile;

leaflets 1 or 3[–7], stipels absent, blades 5–150 mm, margins entire, surfaces glabrous or pubescent.

(1 or)2–50-flowered, usually terminal or subterminal, leaf-opposed, rarely axillary, racemes [heads or flowers solitary or fascicled];

bracts present, persistent or caducous;

bracteoles present, paired proximal to calyx.

papilionaceous;

calyx usually cylindrical, rarely campanulate or cupulate, lobes 5;

corolla usually yellow, sometimes orangish, rarely white, blue, or lavender, glabrous or hairy outside;

stamens 10, monadelphous;

anthers alternately basifixed on long filaments and dorsifixed on small filaments, dehiscing longitudinally;

style with 1 or 2 lines of hairs adaxially;

stigma terminal, usually bilobed.

legumes, subsessile to long-stipitate, usually inflated, globose, ovoid to ellipsoid, or cylindrical, dehiscent, often tardily so, glabrous or pubescent.

1–70, oblique-cordiform to oblong-reniform;

hilar sinus obvious, aril sometimes conspicuous.

subspecies of Crotalaria incana are native to southeast Africa, where they are partially sympatric.

purpurascens (Lamarck) Milne-Redhead occurs also in Madagascar.

= 7, 8.