Humularia minima (Hutch.) P.A.Duvign.

Leguminosae, B. Verdcourt. Flora Zambesiaca 3:6. 2000

Morphology General Habit

Small woody subshrub 0.3–0.5 m tall with several diverging branched stems from a woody rootstock; young stems with a very few short stout bristles but otherwise glabrous or rather densely covered with very short tubercular-based hairs, purplish and usually with a whitish bloom.

Morphology Leaves

Leaves 2-foliolate; leaflets 4.5–13 × 3–10 mm, obovate or obovate-rhombic, broadly rounded at the apex, oblique at the base, glabrous, main nerve marginal and ending in a small point about half-way up the inner side of the leaflet; 3–4 additional nerves radiating from the base; venation strongly reticulate; petiole 3–10 mm long, prolonged between the leaflet pair as a bristle c. 1 mm long and with 4–5 short bristles similar to those on the stems; petiolules very short; stipules 2.5–10.5 × 1.5–9 mm, oblong-elliptic, very rounded at the apex, unequally bluntly bilobed at the base, densely veined, with numerous approximate basal nerves.

Morphology Reproductive morphology Inflorescences

Inflorescences densely strobilate, 1–4.5 cm long; peduncle 3–6 mm long; pedicels 2.5–3 mm long; bracts pale green tinged yellow, brown or red, 6–12 × 6–18 mm, obovate, round or rhombic, divided into two rounded lobes for one-third to three-quarters or sometimes their entire length; bracteoles thin, 1.5–4 × 0.8–1.3 mm, narrowly ovate to lanceolate, often with a few tubercular-based short marginal cilia giving a faintly toothed appearance.

Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers Calyx

Calyx lobes 5–7.5 × 3–3.5 mm, oblong or elliptic-ovate to ovate, the upper entire, the lower very shortly 3-fid.

Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers Corolla

Standard bright yellow, apricot- or orange-coloured, 7–9 × 4–4.5 mm, violin-shaped.

Morphology Reproductive morphology Fruits

Fruit of 1 round or somewhat squarish article, 4–5 mm long and wide, the upper margin ± straight, lower strongly curved, slightly granular in texture.

Morphology Reproductive morphology Seeds

Seeds chestnut-brown, 3 × 2.5 × 1.8 mm, irregularly quadrangular or rounded-reniform, obscurely obtusely beaked at one end beyond the small round eccentric hilum.

Extinction risk predictions for the world's flowering plants to support their conservation (2024). Bachman, S.P., Brown, M.J.M., Leão, T.C.C., Lughadha, E.N., Walker, B.E. https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.19592

Conservation

Predicted extinction risk: threatened. Confidence: confident