Stizolobium P. Browne; Zoophthalmum P. Browne.

Vines, perennial or annual, woody or herbaceous. Leaves pinnately 3-foliolate; stipules usually caducous; stipels sometimes caducous; leaflets large. Inflorescences axillary or on old stems, condensed panicles or often compound pseudoracemes through reduction of ultimate peduncles to small knobs, usually with 3 flowers. Flowers large and beautiful; bracts small or caducous. Calyx campanulate, 5-lobed, upper 2 lobes connate into a broad lip. Corolla dark purple, red, light green, or almost white, usually dark when dry, longer than calyx; standard usually shorter than wings and keel, with stipe, with 2 auricles at base; wings oblong or ovate, inflexed, usually attached to keel; keel petals partially connate along lower margin, slightly longer than or equal to wings, apex in­flexed with horny, often hooked, apical beak. Vexillary stamen free; anthers dimorphic, usually with beard, longer 5 almost basifixed, shorter 5 dorsifixed. Ovary 1- to many ovuled; style filiform, inflexed, sometimes hairy, without beard; stigma small, capitate. Leg­ume ovoid, oblong, or linear, swollen around seeds or laterally flattened, margin often winged, surface often ribbed or ornamented with winglike lamellae sometimes simple or divided into 2 wings along their distal margins (T-shaped in cross section), often clothed with red-brown irritant bristles, dehiscent; valves thick. Seeds reniform, orbicular, or elliptic; hilum linear; strophiole absent.

About 100 species: worldwide; 18 species (nine endemic) in China, including two incompletely known taxa and one possibly extinct species (Mucuna championii).

(Authors: Sa Ren (萨仁); C. Melanie Wilmot-Dear)