Fruits and Seeds of Legume Genera of the World was designed to aid identification of fruits and seeds of the Fabaceae family to genus. The tool published in 2003 on the USDA, ARS, Systematic Botany and Laboratory web site is no longer functional. To make this valuable information available, all content has been republished here without modification, including typos and nomenclature. The 2003 tool content available for publication did not include a glossary or explanatory diagrams or figures. This valuable information is available in the publications that the tool is based on (Gunn, 1984Gunn, 1984:
Gunn CR. 1984. Fruits and seeds of genera in the subfamily Mimosoideae (Fabaceae). USDA Tech. Bull. 1681, 194 pp. Washington, DC., 1991, and Kirkbride et al., 2004). The nomenclature was last modified in March 2003 and may no longer agree with GRIN-Global Taxonomy. Future editions will take the in-depth, well-researched content of this tool and fix typos, update the nomenclature, and augment with supporting content, such as a glossary, explanatory pages, diagrams, and color photographs.
More about the tool's background is below. For its version history, click on the link under the “ABOUT” section.
The Fabaceae (Leguminosae of authors including Isely and Polhill, 1981, Polhill and Raven, 1981Polhill and Raven, 1981:
Polhill RM and Raven PH, eds. 1981. Advances in Legume Systematics, v. 2, pt. 1, pp. 1–464. Int. Legume Conf., Proc. 1978, Kew, England Minis. Agric., Fisheries and Food, Richmond, England., and Polhill, 1994aPolhill, 1994a:
Polhill RM. 1994a. Classification of the Leguminosae. pp. xxx&-xlviii. In F.A. Bisby, J. Buckingham, and J.B. Harborne, eds., Phytochemical Dictionary of the Leguminosae. Chapman & Hall, London, England., 1994b) traditionally is divided into three subfamilies: Caesalpinioideae, Mimosoideae, and Faboideae (Papilionoideae in Polhill and Raven, 1981Polhill and Raven, 1981:
Polhill RM and Raven PH, eds. 1981. Advances in Legume Systematics, v. 2, pt. 1, pp. 1–464. Int. Legume Conf., Proc. 1978, Kew, England Minis. Agric., Fisheries and Food, Richmond, England., and Polhill, 1994aPolhill, 1994a:
Polhill RM. 1994a. Classification of the Leguminosae. pp. xxx&-xlviii. In F.A. Bisby, J. Buckingham, and J.B. Harborne, eds., Phytochemical Dictionary of the Leguminosae. Chapman & Hall, London, England., 1994b). Hutchinson (1964)Hutchinson (1964):
Hutchinson J. 1964. The Genera of Flowering Plants: Dicotyledons. v. 1. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, England. and Cronquist (1981)Cronquist (1981):
Cronquist A. 1981. An Integrated System of Classification of Flowering Plants. Columbia Univ. Press, New York, NY. 1261 pp.
recognized the subfamilies as three separate families. The Fabaceae comprises 685 genera, has more than 18,000 species (Polhill, 1997Polhill, 1997:
Polhill RM. 1997. Introduction to the Leguminosae, legumes in streets and gardens. Bot. Mag. 14(4):176–183.), and is the third largest flowering plant family after Asteraceae and Orchidaceae (Mabberley, 1997Mabberley, 1997:
Mabberley DJ. 1997. The Plant-Book, ed. 2. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England. ). However, only Poaceae rivals Fabaceae in agricultural importance, although the spectrum of legume uses is much greater. The past, present, and future value has been documented recently by Duke (1981)Duke (1981):
Duke JA. 1981. Handbook of Legumes of World Economic Importance. 345 pp. Plenum Press, New York, NY.
, ILDIS and CHCD (1994), the National Academy of Sciences (1979)National Academy of Sciences (1979):
National Academy of Sciences. 1979. Tropical legumes: Resources for the Future. 328 pp. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC., Polhill (1997)Polhill (1997):
Polhill RM. 1997. Introduction to the Leguminosae, legumes in streets and gardens. Bot. Mag. 14(4):176–183., Schery (1972)Schery (1972):
Schery RW. 1972. Plants for Man, ed. 2 .Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ., Simpson and Ogorzaly (1995)Simpson and Ogorzaly (1995):
Simpson BB and Ogorzaly MC. 1995. Economic Botany, Plants in Our World, ed. 2. McGraw&-Hill, New York, NY., Skerman (1977)Skerman (1977):
Skerman PJ. 1977. Tropical Forage Legumes. Food and Agr. Organ. United Nations Plant Prod. and Prot. ser. no. 2, pp. 1&-632., Summerfield and Bunting (1980)Summerfield and Bunting (1980):
Summerfield RJ and Bunting AH, eds. 1980. Advances in Legume Science, v. 1, pp. 1&-667. Int. Legume Conf., Proc. 1978, Kew, England. Minis. Agric., Fisheries and Food, Richmond, England., and Vaughan and Geissler (1997)Vaughan and Geissler (1997):
Vaughan JG and Geissler CA. 1997. The New Oxford Book of Food Plants, ed. 2, 239 pp. Oxford University Press, Oxford, England..
Charles R. (Bob) Gunn participated in the First International Legume Conference at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in 1978. The principal objective of the Conference was to arrive at a consensus on the tribal and generic classification of the legumes, and the objective was met (Polhill and Raven, 1981Polhill and Raven, 1981:
Polhill RM and Raven PH, eds. 1981. Advances in Legume Systematics, v. 2, pt. 1, pp. 1–464. Int. Legume Conf., Proc. 1978, Kew, England Minis. Agric., Fisheries and Food, Richmond, England.). Gunn recognized that this would enable sweeping family-wide studies of many legume aspects. As a first step in his studies, he surveyed legume seed characters (Gunn, 1981aGunn, 1981a:
Gunn CR. 1981a. Seed topography in the Fabaceae. Seed Sci. Techn. 9:737&-757., 1981b), and then prepared a nomenclator of legume genera for use in his databases (Gunn, 1983Gunn, 1983:
Gunn CR. 1983. A nomenclator of legume (Fabaceae) genera. USDA Tech. Bull. 1680, 224 pp. Washington, DC.). He soon decided that legume fruits should be included in his studies because fruits are the units of dispersal for some legumes. Legume fruits and seeds were gathered from institutions and individuals throughout the world and incorporated into the U. S. National Seed Herbarium (BARC), Beltsville, Maryland. Using these resources, he prepared and published treatments covering the fruits and seeds for genera of subfamilies Caesalpinioideae and Mimosoideae (Gunn, 1984Gunn, 1984:
Gunn CR. 1984. Fruits and seeds of genera in the subfamily Mimosoideae (Fabaceae). USDA Tech. Bull. 1681, 194 pp. Washington, DC., 1991). The third and final volume, covering subfamily Faboideae, was prepared by Kirkbride, Gunn, and Weitzman (2004). After submitting the third volume for publication, Kirkbride converted the data and illustrations from all three volumes to electronic format, and it was published on a CD-ROM (Kirkbride et al., 2000). The overall objectives of this Internet version, the CD-ROM, and the three bulletins, were threefold: 1. Collect complete, comparative fruit and seed data for all legume genera, elucidating their fruit and seed morphology and correcting traditional errors in legume literature; 2. Develop tools, images, and data for accurate and rapid identification to genus of either isolated fruits and seeds or herbarium specimens bearing fruits or seeds; and 3. Contribute to our understanding of the evolutionary history of legumes and their tribal and generic systematics by providing essential fruit and seed data for all genera.
In general, the subfamilial classification and phylogenetic numbering of Polhill (Polhill and Raven, 1981Polhill and Raven, 1981:
Polhill RM and Raven PH, eds. 1981. Advances in Legume Systematics, v. 2, pt. 1, pp. 1–464. Int. Legume Conf., Proc. 1978, Kew, England Minis. Agric., Fisheries and Food, Richmond, England.; Polhill, 1994aPolhill, 1994a:
Polhill RM. 1994a. Classification of the Leguminosae. pp. xxx&-xlviii. In F.A. Bisby, J. Buckingham, and J.B. Harborne, eds., Phytochemical Dictionary of the Leguminosae. Chapman & Hall, London, England., 1994b) have been used. For those genera and tribes that have been the subjects of recent discoveries or phylogenetic analyses, we have used the most recent, generally accepted circumscriptions, phylogenetic orders, and numbering systems. The Fourth International Legume Conference was held in Canberra, Australia in 2001. The objective of the conference was to re-evaluate the subfamilial classification of the legumes using DNA data and cladistic principles. Many new ideas and concepts regarding subfamilial legume classification were presented and discussed, but a new, complete subfamilial classification of the legumes, with significant differences from that of Polhill, has yet been formulated as a result. Therefore, we are continuing to use Polhill’s (1994a, 1994b) subfamilial classification and phylogenetic numbers.
Neither mature fruit or seed material nor published data were available for the following 14 genera:
Androcalymma J.D. Dwyer (1.2.11, subfamily Caesalpinioideae, tribe Cassieae)
Burkilliodendron A.R.K.R. Sastry (3.7, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Millettieae)
Carrissoa E.G. Baker (3.10.79, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Phaseoleae)
Clitoriopsis R. Wilczek (3.10.17, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Phaseoleae)
Erichsenia W.B. Hemsley (3.24.05, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Mirbelieae)
Exostyles H.W. Schott (3.1.10, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Swartzieae)
Luzonia A.D.E. Elmer (3.10.23, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Phaseoleae)
Neocollettia W.B. Hemsley (3.11.26, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Desmodieae)
Petaladenium W.A. Ducke (3.2.25, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Sophoreae)
Sartoria P.E. Boissier & T.H.H. von Heldreich (3.18.05, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Hedysareae)
Sellocharis P.H.W. Taubert (3.30.07, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Genisteae)
Spongiocarpella G.P. Yakovlev & N. Ulziykhutag (3.16.13, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Galegeae)
Stirtonanthus B.-E. Van Wyk & A.L. Schutte (3.25.07, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Podalyrieae)
Weberbauerella O.E. Ulbrich (3.14.18, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Aeschynomeneae)
The following 13 genera were represented by fruits or valves:
Augouardia F. Pellegrin (1.4.32, subfamily Caesalpinioideae, tribe Detarieae)
Brachycylix (H.A.T. Harms) R.S. Cowan (1.4.52, subfamily Caesalpinioideae, tribe Detarieae)
Dahlstedtia G.O.A. Malme (3.7, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Millettieae)
Lebruniodendron J.J.G. Léonard (1.4.03, subfamily Caesalpinioideae, tribe Detarieae)
Leucostegane D. Prain (1.4.17, subfamily Caesalpinioideae, tribe Detarieae)
Margaritolobium H.A.T. Harms (3.7, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Millettieae)
Neochevalierodendron J.J.G. Léonard (1.4.13, subfamily Caesalpinioideae, tribe Detarieae)
Nephrodesmus A.K. Schindler (3.11.04, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Desmodieae)
Oryxis A. Delgado Salinas & G.P. Lewis (3.10.69A, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Phaseoleae)
Paloveopsis R.S. Cowan (1.4.51, subfamily Caesalpinioideae, tribe Detarieae)
Podolotus J.F. Royle (3.13.08, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Loteae)
Spirotropis E.L.R. Tulasne (3.2.32, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Sophoreae)
Sylvichadsia D.J. Du Puy & J.-N. Labat (3.7, subfamily Faboideae, tribe Millettieae)
For subfamily Caesalpinioideae, unpublished data (pers. commun.) were supplied by reviewers of tribes: Caesalpinieae, R.S. Cowan and G.P. Lewis; Cassieae, Rupert C. Barneby; Cercideae, Richard P. Wunderlin; and Detarieae, R.S. Cowan and R.M. Polhill.
For subfamily Mimosoideae unpublished data (pers. commun.) were supplied by reviewers of tribes Parkieae, H.C. Hopkins; Mimoseae, G.P. Lewis; Acacieae, L. Pedley; and Ingeae, Rupert C. Barneby and I.C. Nielsen.
For subfamily Faboideae unpublished data (pers. commun.) were supplied by reviewers of tribes: Aeschynomeneae, Vela E. Rudd; Amorpheae, Rupert C. Barneby; Cicereae, L.J.G. Van Der Maesen; Dalbergieae, R.T. Pennington, Vela E. Rudd, and K. Thothathri; Desmodieae, Shinobu Akiyama; Euchresteae, Hiroyoshi Ohashi; Galegeae, Rupert C. Barneby, Aaron Liston, Dieter Podlech, and Andrey Sytin; Genisteae, Chaia Clara Heyn; Hedysareae, K. Thothathri; Loteae, Ana M. Arambarri and Chaia Clara Heyn; Millettieae, Frits Adema and K. Thothathri; Phaseoleae, Paul R. Fantz, Alfonso Delgado Salinas, and L.J.G. Van Der Maesen; Robinieae, Matt Lavin; Sophoreae, Patrick S. Herendeen and Velva E. Rudd; Swartzieae, Patrick S. Herendeen; Thermopsideae, B.L. Turner; Trifolieae, Chaia Clara Heyn and Ernest Small; and Fabeae, Nigel Maxted.
Authors: J.H. Kirkbride, Jr., C.R. Gunn, A.L. Weitzman, M.J. Dallwitz, K.R. Thiele
Content last updated April 2003
Released April 2024 on idtools.org
