Legumes of the World. Edited by G. Lewis, B. Schrire, B. MacKinder & M. Lock. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. (2005)
The monogeneric tribe Mimozygantheae was described to accommodate the single species Mimozyganthus carinatus (Griseb.) Burkart, originally described in the genus Mimosa. Burkart commented that the genus Mimozyganthus was transitional between the Mimosoideae and Caesalpinioideae especially because of its peltate stigma, imbricate sepals and essentially valvate petals (the upper half of the corolla always with the petals valvate but the lower half with some overlap at the margins). He suggested, because of the combination of petal and sepal aestivation, a relationship with tribe Parkieae (the two genera of that tribe currently placed elsewhere and the tribe disbanded) but pointed out that Mimozyganthus differed in having spinescent stipules, free sepals, free stamens, eglandular anthers, no staminodes, a few-seeded ovary and a large peltate stigma. Burkart (1952) proposed that the genus Dinizia Ducke should also be included in the Mimozygantheae but Hutchinson (1964) placed Dinizia in the Mimoseae and Schulze-Menz (1964) placed it in the Parkieae. Guinet (1981) grouped Mimozyganthus with Dinizia in his mimosoid pollen study, but Elias (1981b) repositioned Dinizia in the Mimoseae, thus re-establishing the Mimozygantheae as monogeneric. Luckow et al. (2003) did not include Mimozyganthus in their molecular study but recent work (Luckow et al., submitted a) indicates that Mimozyganthus should be placed in the Prosopis group of Mimoseae, near Piptadeniopsis and Prosopidastrum. While treated in its traditional sense here pending publication of this analysis (Fig. 25), there is no doubt that tribe Mimozygantheae should be disbanded.
Mimozyganthus has a unique combination of morphological features that supported treating it in an isolated taxonomic position (see above). Molecular analysis of the genus, however, has confirmed its position within tribe Mimoseae (Luckow et al., submitted a) and tribe Mimozygantheae will soon pass into synonymy