Nemcia Domin

Scientific Description

Family Papilionaceae. Mirbelieae.

Sometimes included in Oxylobium series Gastroloboideae. Sometimes included in Leguminosae.

Habit and leaf form. Rigid shrubs. Plants unarmed. Leaves cauline. Plants with neither basal nor terminal concentrations of leaves. Leaves opposite, or whorled; when whorled, 3–4 per whorl; leathery (and rather thick); simple; epulvinate. Leaf blades dorsiventral; flat, or solid. Leaves with stipules. Stipules intrapetiolar. Stipules not peltate. Stipules free of one another; setaceous.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite. Plants dense fascicles or corymbs, rarely racemes. Anemophilous and ornithophilous.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; not crowded at the stem bases; in racemes (rarely), or in corymbs, or in fascicles; pedicellate; very irregular; zygomorphic. The floral asymmetry involving the perianth, or involving the perianth and involving the androecium. Flowers papilionaceous; tetracyclic. Floral receptacle developing a gynophore. Free hypanthium present, or absent. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx present; 5; 1 -whorled; gamosepalous; five lobed. Calyx lobes about the same length as the tube. Calyx exceeded by the corolla; bilabiate (the posterior two members connate high up); non-fleshy; persistent; non-accrescent; with the median member anterior. Corolla present; 5; 1 -whorled; appendiculate, or not appendiculate. Standard not appendaged. Corolla polypetalous, or partially gamopetalous. 2 of the petals joined. The joined petals anterior (the keel members). The wings of the corolla free from the keel; not laterally spurred. Standard ‘normally’ developed. Keel about equalling the wings (slightly incurved); not long-acuminate/beaked; neither coiled nor spiralled; not bent and beaked. Corolla imbricate; yellow, or purple, or yellow and purple; deciduous; non-accrescent. Petals clawed. Androecial members definite in number. Androecium 10. Androecial sequence determinable, or not determinable. Androecial members free of the perianth; all equal to markedly unequal; free of one another; 1 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 10; all more or less similar in shape; diplostemonous; both opposite and alternating with the corolla members; filantherous. Anthers separate from one another, or connivent; all alike; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; latrorse, or introrse. Gynoecium 1 carpelled. The pistil 1 celled. Carpels reduced in number relative to the perianth. Gynoecium monomerous; of one carpel; superior. Carpel stylate. Style filiform or basally dilated. Carpel 4–6 ovuled. Placentation marginal. Gynoecium median. Ovary stipitate. Ovules arillate.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit stipitate; non-fleshy. The fruiting carpel dehiscent; a legume. Pods somewhat elongated to much elongated; not triangular; becoming inflated; terete; not transversely septate; wingless. Fruit 1 celled. Dispersal unit the seed. Fruit 3–6 seeded. Seeds not mucous; arillate. Embryo bent (radicle inflexed). Testa non-operculate.

Geography, cytology, number of species. Native of Australia. 2n = 16. A genus of 34 species; 34 species in Western Australia.