Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Millettia

Indian beech, oiltree
Habit Trees [shrubs, vines], unarmed.
Stems

spreading, glabrous.
Leaves

alternate, odd-pinnate;

stipules present, caducous;

petiolate;

leaflets 5–9[–35], stipels absent [present], blade margins entire, surfaces glabrous or glabrate.
Inflorescences

25–40-flowered, axillary [terminal], pseudoracemes [racemes or panicles], flowers mostly paired, rarely fasciculate, at nodes;

bracts present, caducous;

bracteoles 2, at pedicel apex.
Flowers

papilionaceous;

calyx broadly campanulate, truncate, lobes obsolete [short];

corolla white to pink or lavender;

stamens 10, submonadelphous, vexillary stamen distinct at base;

anthers dorsifixed.
Fruits

legumes, within persistent calyx, sessile, compressed, straight, narrowly ovoid, not beaked, woody or rigidly leathery, tardily dehiscent or 2-valved, glabrous.
Seed

1 [several], brown, reniform.
x

= 11.

Millettia
Distribution
from USDA
Asia; Africa; Pacific Islands; n Australia [Introduced, Florida; introduced also in tropical areas worldwide]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Species ca. 150 (1 in the flora).

S. T. Dunn (1912) recognized 134 species in Millettia. R. Geesink (1984) claimed that Millettia encompasses about 90 species distributed from Africa to Malesia, with one species from India to northern Australia and the western Pacific; he also included the genus Hesperothamnus Brandegee, with about five species in Mexico, in his concept of Millettia. G. P. Lewis et al. (2005) maintained Hesperothamnus as separate from Millettia, stating that the latter contains 150 species.

Millettia is conserved against Pongamia Adanson (1763), which is itself conserved, making Pongamia Ventenat (1803), an unnecessary renaming of the genus; the Ventenat name appears in some regional treatments of legumes.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 11. Authors: Velva Rudd†, Neil A. Harriman†.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae
Subordinate taxa
M. pinnata
Synonyms Pongamia
Name authority Wight & Arnott: Prodr. Fl. Ind. Orient. 1: 263. (1834) — name conserved
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers