Tips on using this key

The Fruits and Seeds of Legume Genera of the World key provides 295 diagnostic characters (known as "features" in Lucid) with 1,107 states. With so many potential features to select, start with the "Recommended Features (START HERE)" group. Choose feature(s) from that list that are the most obvious or most simple to interpret. Select the state or states that match your unknown fruit or seed. Features may be selected in any order, and you do not need to choose a state for every feature. By selecting one or more states, the list of genera (or “entities” in Lucid) will be narrowed down to those that exhibit those states. 

After choosing a few states, try Lucid’s "Best" button   or wand icon in the key’s toolbar to further narrow down the possible genera. Best’s algorithm will open the feature that is most useful to score and discriminate between the possible genera. Continue working through the key by clicking the "Best" button. If the feature is unknown, then go back to the list and score a feature that you are confident about scoring. 

Subsets of features are also available by selecting the Subsets button  or diamond icon. You may choose more than one subset. After selecting a few states from this list, you can return to the full list of features. 

Below is a list of additional hints originally written by the authors for a DELTA key. The authors converted the Delta key to a Lucid key, which is available here but did not provide hints for using the Lucid key. Hints specific to using the DELTA key tool have been removed.

• Such obvious and relatively unambiguous features as fruit length, fruit shape, seed length, and testa color, will be found to have great diagnostic value.
• Some genera lack either fruit or seed data or both.
• Geography is often a powerful and useful separator, provided the circumstances are such that it can be reliably applied to the problem in hand. And, scored for every genus.
• Comparable caution is recommended when using numeric characters, which the program accepts directly as single values or ranges. Remember that while these can be determined easily and unambiguously from a specimen, it is hard to obtain reliable, comprehensive information for the larger genera, whose full ranges of variation are doubtless underestimated in some of the descriptions. A judicious precaution, therefore, is to enter ranges somewhat larger than are exhibited by the specimen. Precise values may still be entered later, should they be required.
• No identification can be considered successfully completed until the specimen has at least been checked against a detailed description. Complete or diagnostic generic descriptions are linked in the key.