Family: Fabaceae |
Plants perennial, herbaceous to woody climbers, up to 5 m long or longer. Stems with retorse hairs when young, never with uncinate hairs. Leaves pulvinate, petiolate, stipulate, and pinnately trifoliate; petioles caniculate; stipules persistent, not extending below the point of insertion, several-veined, more or less divergent; leaflets fairly prominently 3-veined from the base, lateral leaflets oblique, not laterally lobed, membranous; stipels persistent, 1-3-veined. Inflorescences dense to open axillary pseudo-racemes, sessile or pedunculate, erect to ascending; peduncles smooth, with few to many flower nodes, the nodes swollen and scarred, nectiferous, each bearing (1-)2(-4) flowers; pedicels about as long as to shorter than the calyces; bracts subtending the pedicels 1-few veined; bracteoles caducous. Calyces 5-lobed, lowest lobe of each calyx the longest, lateral lobes deltoid, upper 2 lobes united into a broad lip; corollas purple to pale violet or white; banner petals oblate, symmetric to strongly asymmetric, with a yellowish nectar guide bordered by callus tissue, bases usually clawed and auriculate; wing petals adnate to the keel petals, the right hand (looking out from base of the flower) at right angles to the keel, forming a landing platform, blades widest towards their itps, protruding as long or longer than the keels, keel petals united almost to the base on the lower side, one or both petals gibbous on the side, terminating in a long, tubular beak that is incurved through a full circle or nearly so or forming a sprial with alsot 2 full terms and more or less enfolded by a groove along the midline of the banner pettals, initial curvature of the keel to the left petal tips not darker than the rest of the petals; stamens 10, of unequal length, uppermost stamen in each flower essentially free, the others connate and distally free; anthers ovate t oblong-ovate, alternately basifixed and dorsifixed; ovaries of 1-carpel. sessile, straight to arched, with 6-21 ovules; styles incurved or spiraled following the keel beak, lower part thin, flexuous, upper part more rigid, laterally or dorsiventrally compressed, with a line of branched or unbranched unicelliar hairs on the inside. Pods linear, laterally compress, the valves sperating along both sutures and twisting at maturity, not or weakly septate; seeds few to many per pod, oblong to broadly elliptic. Wajira includes 5 species, four of which extend from the southern boundary of Kenya north to the Somali region of Ethiopia and southern Somalia. The fifth, Wajira grahamiana, extends from Nigeria through tropical Africa south to Zimbabwe and Mozambique and north to Ethiopia, Somaliland, and southwestern Saudi Arabia and in southern Asia. Key to the species of Wajira in the world, in Somaliland and Somalia. Global distribution of Wajira. Note: GBIF records include introduced and cultivated plants. Consequently, the distribution shown often differs from statements about a taxon's native distribution.
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