Woody vines, or erect or climbing herbs, with pinnately 3-foliolate (sometimes 5-0-folio-late) leaves, persistent stipules, and large showy axillary solitary or racemose flowers. Calyx tubular, 5-toothed, the 2 upper teeth more or less united. Standard large, erect, retuse, narrowed at the base, not spurred; wings oblong, curved; keel acute, shorter than the wings. Stamens more or less monadelphous; anthers all alike. Ovary stipitate; style elongated, incurved, hairy along the inner side. Pod stalked in the calyx, linear or linear-oblong, flattened, 2-valved, partly septate between the seeds.

About 30 species, natives of warm and temperate regions. The following is the only one known to be native in North America. Type species: Clitoria Ternatea L., which is naturalized in Florida.

1. Clitoria Mariána L. Butterfly-Pea

Fig. 2634

Clitoria mariana L. Sp. PL 753. 1753.

Erect or ascending, sometimes twining, glabrous or nearly so, 1°-3° high. Stipules ovate-lanceolate, acute, 1"-2" long; petioles usually shorter than the leaves; leaflets stipel-late, ovate-lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, obtuse, mucronate, 1-2' long, 4"-2" wide; peduncles short, 1-3-flowered; bracts lanceolate, striate, deciduous; flowers about 2' long, very showy; calyx tubular, 6"-8" long, its teeth ovate, acute; corolla pale blue; pods linear-oblong, acute, about 1' long and 3" wide.

Dry soil, Snake Hill, N. J., south to Florida, west to Missouri and Texas. Formerly at Brooklyn, N. Y. Clabbcr-spoon. June-July.

Dolichós Láblab L., the hyacinth bean, native of tropical Asia and widely cultivated in tropical and warm temperate regions for its edible seeds, is a long annual vine with large purple flowers and broad several-seeded pods. It is naturalized in the Southern States, and spontaneous, though scarcely established north to Ohio and the District of Columbia.