Crotalaria grata Polhill

Leguminosae, J. B. Gillett, R. M. Polhill & B. Verdcourt. Flora of Tropical East Africa. 1971

Habit

Erect, trailing or scrambling annual or short-lived perennial, up to 1·5 m. tall, laxly branched.

Stem

Stem usually sparsely pubescent with appressed or rather long spreading hairs, glabrescent.

Leaves

Leaves 3-foliolate; leaflets lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate to broadly elliptic, with the upper ones longer and narrower, up to 4·2–8 cm. long and 1·5–3(–6) cm. wide, glabrous above, appressed pubescent beneath; petiole 1·5–5 cm. long.

Stipules

Stipules subulate-caudate, up to 2–3(–5) mm. long.

Inflorescences

Racemes long-pedunculate, up to 33–45 cm. long, with many fairly closely arranged flowers; bracts subulate-caudate, 2–4(–5) mm. long; bracteoles inserted near the top of the pedicel or at the base of the calyx, ± 1–2 mm. long.

Calyx

Calyx 5–7 mm. long, thinly appressed puberulous; lobes acuminately triangular, longer than the tube.

Corolla

Standard elliptic-obovate, yellow, veined dark red, glabrous outside; wings little more than half as long as the keel; keel strongly rounded about the middle, with a rather long much narrowed and incurved untwisted beak, 13–14 mm. long.

Fruits

Pod shortly stipitate, cylindrical, 26–33 mm. long, 6–8 mm. across, shortly rather spreading pubescent, ± 24–40-seeded.

Seeds

Seeds oblique-cordi-form, ± 3 mm. long, low and irregularly papillose, brown.

Figures

Fig. 128, p. 929.

Habitat

Deciduous and secondary coastal buahland and grassland; also persisting on cultivated ground; under 50 m.

Distribution

K7 not known elsewhere