Contemporary Circumscription Compared with A Utah Flora 4th ed.
Bio430
Fabaceae•Leguminosae
No differences. A Utah Flora uses the traditional name Leguminosae. In the past, some favored elevating the three commonly recognized subfamilies to the family level, but one of these is not monophyletic.
Key Features
Herbs to trees with mostly alternate, pinnately compound or trifoliate leaves (less commonly simple or palmately compound). Leaf bases with a pulvinus and stipulate. Flowers various, but our native species are mostly papillionaceous, and fruit a legume or less commonly, a loment.
Albizia stem/leaf terminology
Robinia (black locust) base of compound leaf with pulvinus and stipular spines
Robinia (black locust) flowers
Cercis canadensis (redbud) trees bloom before the leaves appear
Cercis – redbud leaves are simple with entire margins, and have a pulvinus at base of petiole and pulvinule at base of blade
Redbud are Caesilpinioideae with banner inside the wings and lower two petals free.
Legume from previous year in front on spring red bud flowers
Desmodium - modified legumes that break apart into indehiscent 1-seeded segments are called loments
Loment
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Lupinus have palmately compound leaves; see stipules at the base.
Mimosoideae form showy inflorescence heads of small, regular flowers with long showy stamens that together have a pom-pom appearance
Root nodules containing nitrogen-fixing bacteria on Alfalfa roots
Clover; these tiny flowers are Papilionaceous in form; the inflorescence is a head.
Clover - wing-like stipules at base of ternate leaf
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Astragalus sp. from Emery Co., UT. Papilionaceous flower.
Alfalfa flowers
Alfalfa fruits - tiny, twisty legumes
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Pediomelon
Pediomelon
Vicia
Vicia = section revealing didelphous stamens (9+1) in a papilionaceous flower
Albizia julibrissin (silk tree or mimosa)
Albizia julibrissin (silk tree or mimosa) inflorescence
Albizia julibrissin, close up of flowers - actinomorphic symmetry, long showy stamens
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Cassia fasciculata, a species without a plane of symmetry
Daubentonia punicea, winged legumes
Wisteria flowers; these flowers twist 180 degrees so they are oriented with the banner 'up' (the meristem is hanging down toward the ground)
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Lupine
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Astragalus
- Argentina
Astragalus - Argentina
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