Plants herbs or shrubs, climbing, prostrate, or erect. Leaves pinnately compound, with 1 or 3 leaflets, digitate or subdigitate if 3. Inflorescences axillary, flowers clustered in racemelike structures or umbels. Calyces 4-5-lobed, the upper pair of lobes joined to form entire or 2-lobed lips; corollas glabrous; banner petals with short appendages on the inside; keels often twisted but not beaked; anthers uniform; styles swollen, often more or less twisted at the base, usually glabrous apart from a ring of hairs below the capitate stigmas. Pods compressed; seeds compressed; hila short.
Dolichos is a genus of about 65 species. Most are native to Africa but some are native to India and eastern Asia. There is one taxon present, Dolichos trilobus var. stenophyllus, in Somaliand and Somalia. The species description contains information on both the species and var. stenophyllus.
Note: GBIF records include introduced and cultivated plants. Consequently, the distribution shown often differs from statements about a taxon's native distribution.