| − | Usually copiously sprinkled with resinous black or pellucid dots and strongly scented: lvs. pinnate or trifoliate, rarely unifoliate; stipules free or adnate to the petiole: fls. in racemes or spikes, axillary or terminal, blue, purple, or white; calyx not enlarged after flowering, unequally 5-lobed; standard ovate or orbicular, clawed, wing oblong or falcate, keel incurved, obtuse, dark-colored; ovary sessile: pod ovoid, short, inde- hiscent, 1-seeded. About 115 species common in the tropics and subtropics of both hemispheres, over 30 species in N. Amer. The genus comprises both greenhouse and hardy plants, some annual, others biennial, and still others perennial. The shrubby kinds are prop, by cuttings of half-ripened shoots, the herbaceous species by divisions when the new growth begins. The S. African species thrive in well-drained sandy peat, the others in ordinary garden soil.
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