XLIII. LEGUMINOSjE. 
329 
of a single carpel), with 1, 2, or more ovules arranged along the inner or upper 
angle of the cavity ; style simple. Fruit a pod, usually flatfish and opening 
round the margin in 2 valves, but sometimes follicular or indehiscent, or variously 
shaped. Seeds with 2 large cotyledons, a short radicle, and, with few. exceptions, 
little or no albumen. — Herbs, shrubs, trees, or climbers. Leaves alternate or 
(chiefly in some Australian genera) opposite, usually furnished with stipules, 
compound or reduced to a single leaflet, or to a dilated petiole, or in a few cases 
really simple, the leaflets or leaves entire or rarely toothed or lobed. Flowers 
in axillary or terminal racemes, spikes or clusters, when terminal often becoming 
leaf-opposed by the growth of a lateral shoot, rarely solitary and axillary. 
The largest Natural Order of Phoenogamous plants next to Composite, and widely distributed 
over the whole surface of the globe. Out of the 95 following genera, 35 are dispersed 
over the warmer, chiefly tropical regions of both the New and the Old World ; the 19 other 
tropical genera are chiefly in Africa and Asia ; 1 0 genera belong to the temperate regions of the 
northern hemisphere; 1 (Clianthus) extends only to New Zealand, and 30 are endemic in 
Australia. 
The genera marked with an asterisk in the following table are those which are mentioned only 
as introduced, not described as indigenous. 
Suborder I. PAPILIONACE.E. 
Sepals united in a campanulate or tubular calyx, 5-toothed or cleft, or 
4-toothed by the complete union of the 2 upper sepals, or 2-lobed, the lobe or 
lip entire or 2-toothed, the lower entire or 3-toothed, rarely irregularly split. 
Corolla very irregular, usually papilionaceous, that is of 5 petals, the upper one or 
standard ( vexillum ) outside in the bud, the 2 lateral ones or wings (ala) inter- 
mediate. the 2 lowest ones more or less united along the lower edge or 
approximate, face to face, into a boat-shaped keel ( carina ), more or less enclosing 
the stamens and style. Stamens usually 10, either all free or all united in a tube 
or sheath, enclosing the style, closed or open along the upper edge, or the upper 
stamen more or less free from the others, the filaments all free for some distance 
under the anthers. Ovules usually amphitropous (half inverted), and the radicle 
of the embryo more or less curved over the edge of the cotyledons, rarely short 
and straight. 
The subdivision of this large suborder into tribes is attended with very great difficulties, nor 
has any one character by which it has yet been attempted proved constant. Those here adopted 
are such as have appeared the least objectionable, but there are connecting genera between all of 
them. — Benth. 
Tribe I. Podalyrieae. — Shrubs, rarely herbs or small trees. Leaves simple or digitately 
compound (except in a few Gompholobiums and Burtoniasj, without stipellce. Stamens all free or 
scarcely united at the base. Pod not articulate. 
Standard small or narrow. Ovules 4 or more. Flowers not in heads. 
Upper lobes of the calyx as large as or larger than the others. Leaves 
simple, opposite alternate or none 1. Brachysema. 
Standard orbicular or reniform, large. Ovules 4 or more (except in a few 
Mirbelias). 
Calyx-lobes shorter or scarcely longer than the tube. Leaves simple or 
none. 
Ovary not divided longitudinally. 
Keel about as long as the wings. Leaves usually more or less 
opposite or verticellate 2. Oxylobium. 
Keel shorter than the wings or beaked. Leaves alternate .... 3. Chorizema. 
Ovary and pod divided by a longitudinal partition 4. Mirbelia. 
ilyx-lobes much longer than the tube. 
Calyx-lobes imbricate. Ovary sessile. Funicles short or slender. 
Pod oblong-linear. Leaves simple or unifoliolate 5. Isotropir. 
Calyx-lobes valvate. Ovary stipitate. Funicles long and thick, all 
folded or curved downwards. Pod globular. Leaves pinnate, 
digitately 3 to 5-foliolate, or simple (5. Gompholobium, 
