Crotalaria incana - Silver Rattlepod

Silver Rattlepod is an erect, woody undershrub, up to 1 m tall, clothed with grey pubescence; branches round. Leaves are 3-foliolate; leaflets 5-6 x 2.5-3.0 cm, membranous, obovate or elliptic, wedge-shaped at base, blunt and apiculate at tip, hairless above, velvet-hairy beneath; leaf-stalks with longitudinal groove above, up to 3.5 cm long. Flowers are borne in racemes at branch-ends, elongated, 5-20 cm long. Flowers are 12-20, 1-1.6 cm long, closely arranged. Petals are yellow, often with dark reddish or purplish venation, protruding; standard obovate, 1.0-1.3 cm long; wing petals as long as keel petals; keel petals 8-11 mm long with long, untwisted beak. Ovary is hairy; style hairy, longer than the ovary; stigma head-like. Sepal-cup is 0.6-1.0 cm long, divided to more than half of its length, tube short, covered with fine spreading brown silky hairs, sepals lanceshaped, tapering. Flower-stalks are alternate, short; bracts minute, thread-like, falling off; bracteoles triangular, grooved, about 2 mm long at the base of sepal-cup, falling off. Pods nearly stalkless, deflexed, oblong, 3-4 x about 1 cm, cylindrical densely hairy; seeds 20-30, kidney-shaped. Silver Rattlepod is found in Tropical America, Tropical Africa and South India.