Rhynchosia
(from rhynchos, a beak; alluding to the shape of the keel). ORD. Leguminosae. A genus comprising about seventy-five species of stove or greenhouse, twining, prostrate, or rarely erect herbs, shrubs, or sub-shrubs, inhabiting warm regions. Flowers yellow, the standard often darkly lined, rarely purple, in axillary racemes, rarely solitary in the axils; two upper calyx lobes more or less connate; standard obovate or orbicular, spreading or reflexed; keel incurved at the apex. Leaves pinnately, or rarely sub-digitately, tri-foliolate, exstipellate or minutely stipellate; leaflets resinous-dotted beneath. The species are of no great beauty; only four call for mention here. They thrive in a light, sandy soil, and may be propagated by seeds.
R. Chrysoscias (Chrysoscias). fl. golden-yellow or orange; standard ample; peduncle three or four-flowered at the summit. May. l. on very short petioles; leaflets 1 1/2in. long, oblong-lanceolate, with revolute margins, dark-coloured above, fulvescent beneath. South Africa, 1871. Climbing, greenhouse sub-shrub, covered on the younger portions with gold or tawny hairs. (B. M. 5913.) R. cyanosperma (blue-seeded). fl., corolla bright red-purple, equalling the calyx. Summer, l., leaflets three, leathery; central one roundish, 4in. to 5in. long, cuspidate, with a petiolule 1/2in. long; lateral ones unequal-sided; upper surface thinly, lower densely, grey-pubescent. Tall, shrubby climber. Tropics.
R. c. albiflora (white-flowered). fl. yellowish-white. April. l. acuminate, with a very long acumen. Climbing, stove sub-shrub. (B. M. 1859, under name of Cylista albiflora.) R. gibba (tumid). fl., standard ovate, streaked with brown; peduncles 3in. to 4in. long, floriferous above the middle. September and October. l. on rather long petioles; leaflets variable, sometimes almost orbicular and very obtuse, sometimes rhomboid, acuminate, the lateral ones very unequal-sided, 1/2in. to 1 1/2in. long and broad. Stems climbing or trailing, densely pubescent. South Africa. Greenhouse shrub. (B. R. 275, under name of Glycine caribaea.) R. phaseoloides (Phaseolus-like). fl., standard striped with purple; racemes many-flowered. June and July. l., leaflets ovate or ovate-rhomboid, pointed. Stem suffruticose, twinning, sub-cylindrical. West Indies, 1818. Stove. (B. M. 2284, under name of Glycine phaseoloides.)