Fabaceae

Dendrolobium (Wight & Arn.) Benth.

First published in F.A.W.Miquel, Pl. Jungh.: 216 (1852)
This genus is accepted
The native range of this genus is E. Tropical Africa to W. Pacific.

Descriptions

Legumes of the World. Edited by G. Lewis, B. Schrire, B. MacKinder & M. Lock. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. (2005)

Note

The tribe Desmodieae as treated by Ohashi et al. (1981) comprised 27 genera and c. 540 species in three subtribes, the Bryinae, Desmodiinae and Lespedezinae. Molecular analyses by Bailey et al. (1997) and Doyle et al. (2000) show that Bryinae has affinities elsewhere; Lavin et al. (2001a) place it within the Pterocarpus clade of the Dalbergieae sens. lat. (see page 309). The Bryinae are therefore removed from the Desmodieae here, as are two genera formerly placed in subtribe Lespedezinae; Phylacium Benn. and Neocollettia Hemsl., which are moved to tribe Phaseoleae (see page 393) on morphological, palynological and molecular evidence (Doyle et al., 2000; Kajita et al., 2001). The two remaining subtribes of Desmodieae are recognised in this treatment as three groups, the Lespedeza, Phyllodium and Desmodium groups, based on results of an analysis of the chloroplast gene rbcL (Kajita et al., 2001). The Phyllodium and Desmodium groups correspond to subtribe Desmodiinae, and the Lespedeza group to subtribe Lespedezinae (with Campylotropis now comprising 37 instead of 65 species as in Ohashi et al., 1981).

Desmodieae as circumscribed here comprises 30 genera and (524)–527–(530) species (Fig. 48). The tribe occurs in the tropical, subtropical and warm temperate regions of the world, but extends into the cool temperate and sub-boreal regions of E Asia and N America (except W of the Rocky Mountains). At generic level subtribe Desmodiinae is most diverse in tropical S and SE Asia (Dy Phon et al., 1994), while temperate E Asia (Yang & Huang, 1995) and N America (Isely, 1998) are the centres of diversity of subtribe Lespedezinae. The tribe occurs widely from coastal to montane areas, but not at high altitudes. Species are most commonly shrubs or subshrubs, sometimes herbs, rarely trees and are usually erect and 3-foliolate.

The Desmodieae have been considered similar to tribe Phaseoleae (Polhill, 1981a) and were recently shown to be a monophyletic lineage included within Phaseoleae sens. lat. (Fig. 47, page 394), closely related to subtribe Kennediinae (Doyle & Doyle, 1993, Bruneau et al., 1995; Doyle et al., 1997) and possibly sister to Mucuna (Bailey et al., 1997; Doyle et al., 2000; Kajita et al., 2001).

Habit
Trees or shrubs, rarely herbs
Ecology
Seasonally dry tropical forest, woodland, bamboo thicket or grassland
Distribution
India (3 spp.) to Japan (1 sp.) and abundant in Indo-China (9 spp.) and Malesia to Australia (6 spp.)
[LOWO]

Timothy M. A. Utteridge and Laura V. S. Jennings (2022). Trees of New Guinea. Kew Publishing. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Distribution
Eighteen species in the subtropics and tropics from India to Japan and abundant in Indo-China to Australia; three species in New Guinea. Note, Dendrolobium umbellatum (L.) Benth. was treated within Desmodium by Verdcourt (1979).
Morphology General Habit
Shrub or small tree to 5(–13) m
Morphology Leaves Stipules
Stipules hairy, caducous
Morphology Leaves
Leaves 3-foliolate (in New Guinea), leaflets entire or shallowly undulate, terminal leaflet larger than lateral ones, lateral leaflets often oblique at base
Morphology Reproductive morphology Inflorescences
Inflorescences axillary, subumbellate or umbellate to shortly racemose, densely flowered
Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers
Flowers: bracts scarious, striate; calyx campanulate or tubular, 5-lobed, minutely 2-toothed at apex, or upper 2 lobes connate and calyx thus appearing 4-lobed; lower lobe longer than others; corolla white (in New Guinea) or pale yellow; standard obovate, elliptic, or nearly orbicular, clawed, not auriculate; wings narrowly oblong, clawed, auriculate or not; stamens monadelphous; ovary sessile, (1–)2–8-ovuled
Morphology Reproductive morphology Fruits
Fruit ±moniliform, either comprised of a single article or up to 8-jointed, indehiscent when mature
Morphology Reproductive morphology Seeds
Seed with a distinct rim-aril.
Ecology
Dendrolobium umbellatum has been recorded from a variety of lowland habitats including beach and coastal vegetation, forest edges, swamp forest and river banks, savannah and secondary forests from sea level to 200(–650) m.
Recognition
The genus can be recognised by the pinnately trifoliolate leaves, the axillary inflorescences which appear umbellate having the flowers condensed at the apex of a peduncle, and the jointed fruit which appears moniliform due to constrictions around each seed.
[TONG]

Uses

Use
Used for medicine
[LOWO]

Sources

  • Kew Names and Taxonomic Backbone

    • The International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Vascular Plants 2024. Published on the Internet at http://www.ipni.org and https://powo.science.kew.org/
    • © Copyright 2023 International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Vascular Plants. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

  • Legumes of the World Online

    • http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0

  • Trees of New Guinea

    • Trees of New Guinea
    • http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0

  • World Checklist of Vascular plants (WCVP)

    • The International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Vascular Plants 2024. Published on the Internet at http://www.ipni.org and https://powo.science.kew.org/
    • © Copyright 2023 World Checklist of Vascular Plants. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0