5. Tribe MIMOSEAE
含羞草族 han xiu cao zu
Authors: Delin Wu & Ivan C. Nielsen
Leaves bipinnate. Flowers bisexual, polygamous, or andromonoecious (then upper flowers perfect, lower staminate or sterile), numerous in heads, spikes, or racemes, sometimes aggregated into compound inflorescences. Sepals usually 5, valvate or imbricate. Petals as many as sepals, valvate (except Dinizia), free to joined. Stamens usually 5-10, exserted, free or ± connate at base, sometimes petaloid in sterile flowers; anthers generally dorsifixed, with or without an apical gland; pollen simple or compound. Ovary sessile to stipitate; ovules 2 to many. Legumes usually compressed, occasionally terete, torulose, spirally twisted, or tetragonal and rarely winged, often curved, indehiscent or dehiscent along one or both margins, sometimes with valves separating from a persistent margin (replum) and breaking into 1-seeded segments. Seeds compressed, sometimes winged, exarillate, usually with a pleurogram.
About 40 genera and 860-880 species: distributed in the tropics and subtropics, less often in temperate regions, most numerous in tropical South America and tropical Africa; seven genera (five introduced) and 12 species (eight introduced) in China.
Dichrostachys cinerea (Linnaeus) Wight & Arnott and Prosopis juliflora (Swartz) Candolle are introduced and cultivated in China. However, they are not treated here because they are uncommon and not known to be naturalized.
