Flora of North America species comparison

dimorphic; leafy stems ascending to erect, unbranched, 10–50 cm, glabrous or sparsely pilose;

leafless or nearly leafless stems essentially peduncles arising from base of plant, erect, divergent, or spreading, to 70 cm.

ascending to erect or spreading, terete, usually pubescent, rarely glabrous.

3-foliolate, 4–7 usually whorled, sometimes scattered on stem;

stipules deciduous and rarely observed, linear, 2–2.5 mm;

petiole 4.5–12.5 cm;

leaflets usually estipellate, rarely partly stipellate, blades with sparsely pilose veins on both surfaces, sometimes glabrate adaxially;

lateral blades oblique, nearly as large as terminal;

terminal blade rhombic, elliptic, obovate, or orbiculate, 4.5–12 × 3–8 cm, apex acute or short-acuminate.

whorled or alternate, usually odd-pinnate, rarely unifoliolate;

stipules present, usually scarious, rarely thinly papery, striate, glabrate or hairy; petiolate;

leaflets usually 3, rarely 1 [5 or 7], stipels present or absent, sometimes partly or wholly, filiform, usually reduced, scarious, blade margins entire, rarely undulate, ciliate, surfaces pubescent.

on peduncle arising from base of plant, branched;

rachis white-pilose and uncinate-puberulent;

primary bract narrowly ovate to subulate, 5 mm.

2–26-flowered, terminal, sometimes also axillary, sometimes a fertile shoot separately arising from basal part of vegetative stem, pseudoracemes, sometimes in panicles, lax-flowered, branched or unbranched;

bracts caducous, primary ones subtending flower cluster with secondary bracts each subtending 1 pedicel.

slender, 10–25 mm, glabrous.

densely uncinate-puberulent or glabrous.

calyx 1.5–2.5 mm, white-puberulent, hairs scattered, long, stiff;

corolla usually pink, rarely white, 6–9 mm, keel connate along abaxial margin (enclosing reproductive organs).

papilionaceous;

calyx broadly campanulate, lobes 5, usually appearing 4-lobed, adaxial pair connate except apically, with 2 minute teeth, lobes shorter than tube;

corolla pink, pink-purple, or white [orange, red], banner clawed or tapering proximally, blade usually broadly obovate, often with pair of spots (false nectar guides) at base;

wing and keel petals clawed, keel usually connate along abaxial margin of blade (distinct in H. pauciflorum);

stamens 10, monadelphous;

anthers dorsifixed;

ovary stipitate.

loments, distinctly stipitate, stipe exserted from calyx, greater than 5 mm, glabrous or puberulent, compressed, very deeply incised abaxially, straight or shallowly undulate adaxially, 1–4-jointed, lateral faces densely uncinate-puberulent;

segments obliquely depressed or very shallowly obovate or obtriangular;

sutures glabrate, abaxial suture very deeply incised, adaxial distinctly thickened, connections between segments (isthmi) less than 1/5 as broad as pod.

2–5, flat, obliquely depressed-obovate, broadest 2/3 distance towards anterior end, without rim-aril around hilum;

cotyledons of seedlings hypogeous, remaining underground being enclosed in loment-segment, rarely epigeous.

1–4-articulate;

segments asymmetrically depressed-obtriangular, 7–12 × 4–5 mm;

stipe (5–)10–22 mm, glabrous or glabrate.

= 11.