Otoptera burchellii
| Family: | Fabaceae |
| Full name: | Otoptera burchellii DC. |
| Location: | Farm Neuras, along D850 (2416AD) |
| ID status: | Fairly certain |
| Afrikaans common name(s): | Beesboontjie |
| English common name(s): | Purple savanna-pea |
| Synonym(s): | Vigna burchellii (DC.) Harv. |
| Status: | Native |
| Description: | Flowers paired two or four, calyx green, corolla purple with lime green throat, 25 mm in diameter. Perennial herb, often trailing or climbing with hairy stems up to 2 m long, sometimes a spindly small shrub, up to 1 m tall. Branchlets densely pubescent. Leaves 3-foliolate; leaflets lanceolate to ovate, up to 10 x 3.5 cm, blue-green, pointed at the apex with a long mucronate tip; margin entire. Flowers in 2-5-flowered axillary heads on a long peduncle, sweetly scented; standard variable in colour, pink, mauve, blue, violet or red, usually green or yellow at the base. Pod up to 12 x 0.8 cm. (from Flora of Zimbabwe website) Suffruticose, diffuse or suberect, much-branched, nearly glabrous; leaflets ovato-lanceolate or lanceolate, rigid, setaceo-mucronate, glabrous; stipules sagittato-peltate, ovato-lanceolate, stipellæ subulate; peduncles longer than the leaves, 2–4-flowered at the summit; calyx campanulate, deeply 4- fid, the lobes lanceolate, acuminate, very acute; carina falcate-acute; alæ with an ear-shaped appendage to the claw; legume? Stems ligneous, diffuse; the branches rigid and suberect. Petioles 0.25– 0.5 inch long. Adult leaves 1–2.5 inches long, 0.25– 0.5 inch wide near the base, quite glabrous, the younger puberulous, all tipped with a long, setaceous mucro. Peduncles 3–5 inches long, umbellate; pedicels 3–6 lines long. The two upper segments of the calyx are completely connate to the point, all are spreading or reflexed after the flowers open. Carina very acute, like that of a Crotalaria. This has quite the habit of Vigna angustifolia, but differs in the calyx and corolla, etc.. (from JSTOR Global Plants website / Flora Capensis) Perennial plant of varying habit, with trailing stems to 2 m long, a climber 1–3 m tall or a wiry spindly subshrub to 1 m tall; stems hairy. Leaflets 1.3–10 x 0.35–3.5 cm, lanceolate or narrowly triangular to ovate, apiculate at the apex, broadly cuneate to rounded at the base, glabrous above, with scattered hairs beneath; petiole (2)5–15 mm long; rhachis 2–17 mm long; stipules 7 x 1.5 mm, narrowly attenuate, the spur 5 mm long; stipels 5 mm long, subulate. Flowers sweet-scented, (1)2–4(5); peduncle 1.5–18.5 cm long; pedicels 7–12 mm long; bracts 2.5–3.5 x 0.8–1.2 mm; bracteoles 4–6 x 1–1.8 mm, lanceolate. Calyx tube 5–7 mm long; calyx lobes 6–9 x 2–3.5 mm, triangular to lanceolate, the lowest the longest; upper lip up to 5 mm wide. Corolla variously described as pink and mauve or blue, violet or red with the base of standard inside pale green or yellow and greenish-yellow or whitish outside; standard 2.2 x 2.4 cm; wings c. 1.8 cm long, spathulate, much narrowed at the base with a distinct spur 3 mm long, decurrent on to the claw. Pods 5–12 cm x 5–8 mm. Seeds dark blackish-brown, 8 x 5.5 x 5.5 mm; hilum 0.8 mm long. (from JSTOR Global Plants website / Flora Zambesiaca) |
| Link(s) |
African Plant Database
JSTOR Plant Science Kew Herbarium Catalogue BGBM Berlin-Dahlem - Virtual Herbarium Züricher Herbarien iNaturalist (Namibia / Alex Dreyer) iNaturalist (Namibia) iNaturalist (southern Africa) Flora of Zimbabwe Fleurs de notre Terre - Galerie Namibie Tree Atlas of Namibia |
| Photographer: | AA Dreyer |
| Date of photograph: | 03 Jul 2011 |
| Camera make: | Panasonic |
| Camera model: | DMC-FZ45 |
| Lens aperture: | f/2.8 |
| Shutter speed: | 1/100 s |
| ISO speed: | 80 |
| Content last updated: | 18 Apr 2024 |
