Podolotus

Taxonomy

Podolotus J.F. Royle Ill. Bot. Himalayan Mts. 198. Apr 1835.

Subfamily: Faboideae.
Phylogenetic Number: 3.13.08.
Tribe: Loteae.
Species Studied - Species in Genus: 0 studied; 1 in genus.

Description

Fruit: A legumelegume:
usually dry, dehiscent fruit derived from a single carpel that opens along two longitudinal sutures
; unilocular; 1.2–2 cm long; ca. 0.4 cm wide; with persistent androecial sheath; with deciduous corolla; with persistent calyx; with calyx shorter than fruit; without orifice formed by curving of fruit or fruit segments; straight; not plicate; not twisted; symmetrical; oblong; not inflated; with beak; hooked; tapered at apex; aligned with longitudinal axis of fruit; aligned with longitudinal axis of fruit; membranous; seed chambers externally invisible; margin constricted; margin slightly constricted along both margins; margin without sulcus; margin plain; wing(s) absent; substipitate; with the stipe ca. 5 mm long. Replum invisible. Epicarp brown; without spines; not smooth; with elevated features; SUB veined; not tuberculate; without embedded tissue, much thicker than epicarp, running from base to apex. Seed(s) 3–5.

Distribution

Southern Iran and northern Afganistan, Pakistan, and India.

Old World; Southwest Asia and India (Southern Iran and northern Afganistan, Pakistan, and India).

Generic Notes

The position of this monotypic genus has been much discussed. After it was described, it was reduced to a section of the genus Astragalus (3.16.15), and now been returned to tribe Loteae as an accepted genus (Polhiil 1994b). No specimen was available for study, so the limited data were taken from Rechinger (1984).

Tribal Notes

Tribe Loteae

In 1981, Polhill (1981k) accepted much broader generic circumscriptions in tribe Loteae, and only accepted four genera in the tribe: Cytisopsis, Anthyllis (13.02), Hymenocarpus (13.04), and Lotus (13.07). In his most recent classification of Fabaceae (Polhill, 1994a, 1994b), he combined tribes Loteae and Coronilleae and accepted six segregate genera in Loteae, s.s.: Tripodion (13.03), Dorycnopsis (13.05), Dorycnium (13.06), Podolotus J.F. Royle (13.08), Pseudolotus K.H. Rechinger (13.09), and Vermifrux (13.10).