Indigastrum Jaub. & Spach

First published in Ill. Pl. Orient. 5: 101 (1856)
This genus is accepted
The native range of this genus is Africa, Arabian Peninsula Indian Subcontinent, N. Australia.

Descriptions

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

Note

Polhill (1981f) recognised 4 genera and c. 710 species in Indigofereae. This treatment following Polhill (1994), Schrire (1995), Barker et al. (2000) and Schrire et al. (2003) recognises 7 genera and c. 768 species in the tribe (Fig. 44). The Indigofereae are predominantly African-Madagascan in distribution, occurring in seasonally dry vegetation types of the tropics and subtropics. The genus Indigofera (third largest in the Leguminosae) is pantropical in distribution.

Recent morphological-molecular analyses (Pennington et al., 2000a; Crisp et al., 2000; Wojciechowski et al., 2000, 2004; Hu, 2000; Kajita et al., 2001; Hu et al., 2002 and Wojciechowski, 2003) place Indigofereae at the base of a combined millettioid group of tribes (including Millettieae, Abreae, Phaseoleae, Desmodieae and Psoraleeae). This entire clade is sister to Hologalegina (comprising the robinioids and the Inverted Repeat Lacking Clade (IRLC)). Basally branching to these two clades are the South African Hypocalypteae and Australian tribes Mirbelieae and Bossiaeeae.

The Indigofereae (Barker et al., 2000; Schrire et al., 2003) comprises a Cyamopsis, Indigastrum, Microcharis and Rhynchotropis (CRIM) clade which is sister to the Indigofera-Vaughania clade. The Madagascan Phylloxylon is putatively the most basally branching genus in the tribe, although in some analyses in Schrire et al. (2003), Phylloxylon is sister to the CRIM clade.

Habit
Herbs
Ecology
Seasonally dry tropical woodland, bushland, thicket or grassland, often in seasonally damp or open sandy and rocky areas
Distribution
Africa (except largely W Africa, mostly in Zambezian to Sudanian regions and 3 spp. in the Karoo-Namib region of southern Africa); 1 sp. pantropical
[LOWO]

M. Thulin et al. Flora of Somalia, Vol. 1-4 [updated 2008] https://plants.jstor.org/collection/FLOS

Morphology General Habit
Herbs with biramous hairs
Morphology Leaves
Leaves imparipinnate
Morphology Reproductive morphology Inflorescences
Flowers in axillary racemes; bracts soon falling
Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers Corolla
Corolla pink or red, soon falling; standard glabrous; keel with lateral pouches but no spurs, beaked at the top
Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers Androecium Stamens Filaments
Vexillary filament free; anthers sometimes with hyaline scales, apiculate
Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers Gynoecium Stigma
Stigma oblique
Morphology Reproductive morphology Fruits
Pod linear, slightly upturned at the apex, cylindrical or flattened, few- to many-seeded.
Distribution
Some seven species in Africa, one more or less pantropical.
Note
Previously usually regarded as a subgenus of Indigofera.
[FSOM]

Uses

Use
Used as fodder and for dyes
[LOWO]

Sources

  • Flora of Somalia

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

  • 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

  • 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