Piptadenia
(from pipto, to fall, and aden, a gland; referring to the falling gland of the anthers). ORD. Leguminosae. A genus comprising about thirty species of unarmed or prickly, stove shrubs or trees, two of which are natives of tropical Africa, and the rest inhabit the warmer regions of America. Flowers white or greenish, small, uniform, hermaphrodite or subpolygamous, sessile or pedicellate, disposed in cylindrical spikes or globose heads; peduncles axillary, solitary or fasciculate, the uppermost ones at the tips of the branches, often paniculate. Pods stipitate or rarely sessile, broadly linear, flat, membranous or coriaceous. Leaves bipinnate; leaflets small and many-jugate, or rarely large and few-jugate. For culture of the species described below, see Adenanthera.
P. latifolia (broad-leaved). fl. spicate; spikes shorter than the leaves, axillary or in terminal panicles. l. bipinnate, tri-or quadri-jugate, glabrous, often slightly glaucescent beneath; leaflets tow, three, or many-jugate, obovate-elliptic, slightly acute. h. 4ft. Brazil, &c., 1820.