Description: Shrubs or small trees.
Leaves alternate, 3-foliolate, petiolate, stipules absent.
Flowers in leafy umbels or racemes, bracts and bracteoles caducous. Calyx tubular, prominently 2-lipped, upper lip 2-toothed, lower lip 3-toothed. Standard ± circular, longer than wings and keel. Stamens monodelphous; anthers alternately long and basifixed and short and dorsifixed. Ovary sessile; c. 2-ovuled; style upcurved to looped; stigma capitate or extrorse.
Pod flattened; seeds several, with an aril.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 20 species, Europe & Mediterranean. Australia: 1 species (naturalized).
Text by G. J. Harden
Taxon concept:
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