A flora of Manila - Rainforestation

LEGUMINOSAE 243
26. LOUREA Necker
Erect or spreading herbs with thin, stipellate, 1- to 3-foliolate leaves.
Flowers in terminal, simple or panicled racemes. Calyx thin, campanulate,
enlarged in fruit, the teeth lanceolate, as long as the tube. Corolla equaling
or longer than the calyx; standard broad; keel obtuse. Stamens diadel-
phous. Ovary few-ovuled; style * inflexed, slender. Pod of few, small,
distinct, 1-seeded, smooth, veined joints, included in the calyx.
Species 4, India to China, Malaya, and Australia, 2 in the Philippines,
the following introduced.
* 1. L. VESPERTILIONIS (L.) Desv.
Erect, slender, about 60 cm high, the upper parts finely pubescent.
Leaves with 1, rarely 3 leaflets, green, mottled or clowded with white, the
end one several times broader than long, 4 to 7 cm wide, usually less
than 1 cm long, the halves linear to lanceolate, spreading, apex broadly
marginate. Racemes slender 3 to 12 cm long. Flowers small. Calyx in
fruit about 1 cm long. Pod of 4 or 5 joints. (Fl. Filip. pi. 201.)
Occasionally cultivated in Singalon for ornamental purposes. A native
of India, now widely distributed in the tropics, wild or cultivated.
27. INDIGOFERA Linnaeus
Erect branched herbs, shrubs, or small trees, more or less pubescent.
Leaves pinnate, sometimes simple or 3-foliolate. Flowers small, in many-
flowered, axillary racemes. Calyx small, campanulate, 5-toothed, the teeth
subequal or the lowest one longest. Standard obovate, the keel straight,
spurred on each side near the base. Stamens diadelphous. Ovary fewto
many-ovuled; style short; stigma capitate, usually penicillate. Pod
usually linear-cylindric, often curved. (So named because some species
yield indigo.)
Species about 300 in all tropical regions, 8 in the Philippines.
1. Pods densely hirsute with spreading hairs; densely pubescent plants.
1. Pods glabrous or nearly so, not hirsute; nearly glabrous plants.
1. /. hirsuta
2. Pods much curved, 1 to 1.5 cm long, 6- to 8-seeded.— 2. /. siiffruticosa
2. Pods straight or curved only at the apex, 2 to 3 cm long, 8- to 12-seeded.
3. /. tinctoria
1. I. HIRSUTA L. Tayom-tayoman (Tag.).
An erect, branched, annual, suffrutescent herb 0.4 to 1 m high, the
stems reddish-brown, covered with spreading brown or purplish hairs.
Leaves 8 to 15 cm long, the stipules linear, hirsute, 1 cm long; leaflets
5 to 11, obovate, pubescent, pale, beneath, 1.5 to 3 cm long. Racemes
axillary, dense, 6 to 20 cm long, hirsute. Flowers about 6 mm long, the
calyx hirsute, the corolla reddi.sh-purple, slightly exserted. Pods straight,
reflexed, 1.5 to 2.5 cm long, about 2.5 mm wide, covered with brown,
spreading hairs.
In open grass lands, waste places, etc. fl. most of the year; widely
distributed in the Philippines, but surely introduced here. Tropics generally.
2. I. SUFFRUTICOSA Mill. (/. ujiil L.). Tayom (Tag.); Indigo.
An erect, branched, suffrutescent plant 1 m high or less, slightly pubescent
with short, appressed hairs. Leaves 5 to 8 cm long; leaflets 9 to 11,