Kerstingielia

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Read about Kerstingielia in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture 

Kerstingielia (Dr. Kersting, of Togoland). Leguminosae. A very recently described African plant that produces a bean underground, much after the manner of peanut. It is widely cult, by the natives of Trop. Afr. for food, K. geocarpa, Harms (Voandzeia poissonii, Chev.). It is a prostrate herb, the main st. creeping, 2-3 in. long, and rooting at the nodes: lvs. 3-foliolate, rising on slender petioles, the lfts. broadly ovate or obovate, obtuse: fls. small, in pairs or solitary, subsessile in the axils (on the ground); corolla papilionaceous, greenish white but the standard pale violet at tip: pod maturing underground, indehiscent, usually divided by 1 or 2 constrictions into 2 or 3 joints; seeds oblong or oblong-ovoid, about 1/4in. long, white, red or mottled: "after fertilization, the solid base or stipe of the pistil, which in the fl. is very short, lengthens into a carpopodium and at the same time turns toward the ground; then the corolla and the style are thrown off. The ovary, still very small, is pushed out of the calyx, and by the root-like carpopodium gradually driven into the ground, where finally the growth and the maturation of the ovary into the seed-bearing pod take place."— Kew Bull., 1912, p. 209, with fig. See Voandzeia. L.H.B.


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