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Leguminosae
Synonyms
Stenolobium caeruleum Benth.
Common names
Namie napirang, Klein Kau (Suriname).
Description
A sturdy, somewhat woody, climbing, perennial legume. Stems
twining, pubescent to glabrescent. Leaves alternate, trifoliate. Petioles
to 12 cm long, pubescent. Leaflets rhomboid-acute to ovate, the lateral
ones oblique, pubescent above, velvety pubescent below, 5 to 20 cm long,
5 to 15 cm wide. Inflorescence elongated. Many-flowered, axillary, spike-like
raceme, 25 to 50 cm long. Peduncle very short. Rachis sulcate, tomentose.
Calyx campanulate, villous, 4 mm long, the teeth triangular-lanceolate,
shorter or nearly as long as the tube. Corolla blue to violaceous. Standard
10 mm long, 8 mm wide, emarginate. Wings about as long as the standard.
Keel shorter. Pods linear-oblong, pubescent, 4 to 8 cm long, 8 mm wide,
impressed between the seeds. Four to eight seeds, orbiculate, compressed,
shining (Graham, 1933; Pulle, 1976).
Distribution
Native to Central America, Mexico and the West Indies, and
eastern tropical South America to southern Brazil.
Main reference
Middleton and Mellor (1982).
General features
C. caeruleum reached the grazing assessment stage of evaluation
at South Johnstone, on the wet tropical coast of north Queensland, Australia.
It had grown better in winter than common centro (Centrosema pubescens)
and had been high yielding. It also showed strong stolon development and,
under grazing, maintained a better legume proportion in guinea grass pastures
than centro or puero (Pueraria phaseoloides). By 1976, it had
dominated an 0.8 ha area planted in 1973. By 1979, this dominance was
so complete that animal performance was declining drastically. The C.
caeruleum proved sufficiently unpalatable not to support animals
on almost pure stands (Middleton and Mellor, 1982).
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