Flora of North America species comparison

erect, spreading, ascending, decumbent, prostrate, matted, or tufted, branched, glandular or eglandular, glabrous or pubescent, trichomes spirally twisted.

alternate, usually odd-pinnate, rarely 3-foliolate;

stipules present, caducous or persistent, deltate, ovate, or subulate;

petiolate;

leaflets 3–43(–49), stipels absent, blades with 2 adaxial intrapetiolular glands and 2 abaxial postpetiolular glands often present between opposing leaflets, not lineolate, margins usually entire, rarely undulate-crenate or crenulate, surfaces usually glandular-punctate abaxially, often pubescent, sometimes glabrous.

pinnate, palmate, unifoliolate, or 3-foliolate, rarely 2 or 4-foliolate, not bipinnate.

10–500+-flowered, loosely to densely flowered, terminal, leaf-opposed, or axillary, usually spikes (sometimes headlike), rarely racemes;

bracts present, caducous or persistent;

bracteoles absent or glandlike, spiculiform.

papilionaceous or not conventionally so (abaxial petals not connate or forming a keel);

calyx campanulate, lobes 5, unequal or ± equal;

ribs 10, usually anastomosing distally, forming closed arches, intervals between ribs usually glandular, rarely eglandular;

petals (3 or)5, corollas white, pale to dark blue, lavender, pink, rose, blue-violet, magenta-purple, or bicolored;

banner reflexed, sometimes as much as 90°, claw slender, shorter to longer than blade;

other petals epistemonous, attached to stamen tube at varying levels, petals usually similar, sometimes differentiated into wings and keel;

wings, if differentiated, not adnate to keel petals;

keel, if differentiated, distinct, connate by overlapping margins, or valvately coherent to form conventional keel, blunt-tipped;

stamens usually 5, 9, or 10, rarely 4 or 6–8, monadelphous, ± uniform, rarely only 3–6 fertile;

anthers dorsifixed;

style glabrous or pilosulous;

ovules 2.

usually papilionaceous, rarely nonpapilionaceous (in Amorpha, Parryella, sometimes Clitoria), bilateral, rarely asymmetrical, or radial;

sepals connate at least basally;

petals 5(or 6), rarely only 1 (banner) present or 0;

stamens (1–9)10(+), filaments connate, or adaxial filament ± distinct, rarely all filaments distinct, usually heteromorphic, anthers basifixed or dorsifixed;

pollen in monads.

legumes, sessile, mostly tan, usually ± compressed, obliquely ovoid or semiorbicular, usually indehiscent, sometimes tardily dehiscent, pericarp often membranaceous proximally, thickened distally, usually gland-dotted, usually glabrous or pilosulous, sometimes glabrate, villosulous, pilose, or glabrescent.

legumes, dehiscent or indehiscent, or loments, drupes, or samaroid.

1, brownish, tan, chestnut, or greenish, somewhat compressed, asymmetrically reniform.

with complex hilar valve, hilum elongate, pleurogram absent;

embryo usually curved, rarely straight.

nectaries absent on petiole and rachis, sometimes stipular, stipellar, or bracteal, rarely on sepals.

lateral, free, or absent.

= 7, 8.

= 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.