Flora of North America species comparison

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

suffrutescent basally, erect, 75–250 cm, strigose to strigillose, hairs tightly appressed.

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.

3-foliolate;

stipules absent;

leaflet blades elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate or elliptic-oblanceolate, 40–100(–140) mm, length 3–4.5 times width, surfaces strigose abaxially, glabrous adaxially.

10–50-flowered, terminal, subterminal, or lateral, 10–40 cm;

bracts persistent, linear-subulate.

(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.

calyx broadly cylindrical, basally truncate and deflexed against pedicel, 4–6 mm (length less than width), lobes triangular-lanceolate, glabrous or sparsely strigillose;

corolla yellow with prominent reddish lines, each wing with a purple spot at base, 12–15 mm.

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

30–45 × 7–12 mm, sparsely to densely strigose to strigose-sericeous.

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

hilar sinus obvious, aril sometimes conspicuous.

= 7, 8.