Dioclea

• Authority

  Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro. 2005. Vines and climbing plants of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Contr. U. S. Natl. Herb. 51: 1-483.

• Family

  Fabaceae

• Scientific Name

  Dioclea

• Description

  Description - Woody vines, twining, occasionally erect subshrubs. Leaves alternate, trifoliolate; stipels minute; stipules conspicuous, persistent, or absent. Inflorescences of axillary pseudoracemes, fasciculate, the flowers grouped on the swellings along the rachis; bracts and bracteoles minute, deciduous. Calyx campanulate, with 4 lobes, the upper lobe entire or emarginate; corolla purple or rarely white, the standard reflexed, emarginate, auriculate and usually with 2 callosities at the base, the wings free, sometimes spurred, the keel distally fused, rostrate; stamens 10, pseudomonadelphous; ovary superior, villous, stipitate or sessile, with 1 or more ovules, the style flattened or cylindrical, the stigma capitate, terminal or subterminal. Fruit a linear, oblong, obovate, or almost circular legume, compressed or turgid, coriaceous or woody, dehiscent or indehiscent; seeds large, compressed to globose, with a linear, elongate hilum. A genus of about 55 species, distributed throughout the tropics, with the greater number of species in South America.