紫穗槐族 zi sui huai zu

Authors: Zhi Wei & Michael G. Gilbert

Small trees, shrubs, or herbs, with glandular punctae or pustules. Leaves paripinnate, imparipinnate, or less often pinnately to digitately 3-foliolate or 1-foliolate; stipels sometimes present. Flowers in racemes, spikes, or heads, terminating axis of origin (most becoming leaf-opposed). Calyx marcescent, upper lobes sometimes joined higher. Corolla papilionaceous, imperfect, or absent; lower petals often epistemonous, sometimes little differentiated. Stamens (5-)9 or 10, almost free to largely joined, usually monadel­phous; anthers usually uniform, sometimes gland-tipped. Ovary 1- or 2(-7)-ovuled. Legumes 1-seeded, indehiscent, continuous with recep­tacle and falling together with marcescent calyx. Seeds with small hilum.

Eight genera and 240-250 species: all native to the Americas; one species (introduced) in China.

The Amorpheae was first thought to be most closely related to the Psoraleeae, but both molecular and morphological analyses now place it as sister to the Dalbergioid clade (e.g., McMahon & Hufford, Amer. J. Bot. 91: 1219-1230. 2004).

Lower Taxon

• Amorpha Linnaeus