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Leguminosae
Synonyms
G. tomentosa (Benth.) Benth., non L.; Leptolobium tomentosum
Benth.; Leptocyamus tomentosus Benth.
Common names
Woolly glycine, woolly sweetroot vine (Australia).
Description
A perennial legume with prostrate stems that trail or climb
over shrubs, usually stouter than those of G. tabacina (2 mm in diameter),
tomentose-villous, the vestiture usually tawny. Leaves pinnately trifoliate,
their villous-hirsute petioles 1 to 9 cm long. Rachis 2 to 9 mm long. Stipules
ovate to lanceolate, 2 to 3 mm long, coarsely several ribbed, densely pubescent
to glabrous. Leaflets oblong, elliptic to oval or ovate, thin, 14 to 65
mm long, 8 to 35 mm wide, the terminal generally longer than the lateral,
obtuse and usually mucronate, sometimes emarginate, abruptly tapering or
rounded at the base, more or less velvety tomentose to strigose on both
surfaces. Petiolules 0.5 to 1.5 mm long, hirsute. Racemes in the upper
axils, 0.75 to 3 cm long, compactly to loosely 7- to 15-flowered, on hirsute
peduncles 3.5 to 10 cm long. Flowers frequently solitary, geminate or in
few-flowered fascicles in the lower axils, 5 to 7 mm long, on hirsute pedicels
0.5 to 1.5 mm long, inserted singly on the rachis. Calyx 3.5 to 6 mm long,
hirsute to densely hirsute or rarely strigose, the teeth lanceolate and
usually narrowly attenuate to setaceous at the apex, longer than the tube
(2.5 to 3.5 mm long), the upper pair joined to about the middle. Corolla
purple to mauve or reddish. Standard obovate, ascending, longer than the
obovate, oblong wings, which exceed the keel. Pod linear, 12 to 23 mm long,
2.75 to 3.5 mm wide, hirsute to glabrous, compressed, three- to seven-seeded.
Seeds 1.75 to 2.25 x 1.25 to 2 mm, short-oblong to quadrate, usually truncate
at both ends, subcylindrical at maturity; smooth, muriculate or papillose;
purplish black in colour (Hermann, 1962). Distribution. Woolly glycine
is native from northern Australia, Queensland and north-western New South
Wales, through the islands of New Guinea, New Caledonia and the Philippines
to southern China and Fujian and Taiwan provinces. It is found on river
banks, dry slopes and in open woods (Hermann, 1962).
General features
Woolly glycine is widely distributed and highly valued as a
native legume throughout the subcoastal areas and interior of Queensland.
It is particularly conspicuous in good seasons on the heavy, black basaltic
clay soils, to which it is well suited. It also occurs among the strand
vegetation and along the rocky shores of the Capricorn Coast near Rockhampton,
Queensland. When the basaltic downs are cultivated, woolly glycine can
grow to weed proportions in the fallows.
Woolly glycine nodulates abundantly when growing conditions are good,
but the nodules are absent in exceptionally wet or dry times as well as
after winter frosts. It shows some ability to retain nodules under adverse
conditions, but possibly only because the nodules are more resistant to
decay than those of other legumes (Diatloff, 1967b).
Woolly glycine seeds quite profusely, but over a very long period each
year. Since the pods shatter readily, conventional harvesting would not
give high yields. Vacuum harvesting may be possible, although the natural
stands grow on unsuitable soils.
When subjected to artificial salinity for ten days in the five-trifoliate-leaf
stage, G. tomentella showed the least resistance of the three native glycines
tested (Wilson, Haydock and Robins, 1970).
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