Millettia
| Millettia | |
|---|---|
| |
| Millettia laurentii, foliage and flowers | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Rosids |
| Order: | Fabales |
| Family: | Fabaceae |
| Subfamily: | Faboideae |
| Tribe: | Millettieae |
| Genus: | Millettia |
| Species | |
| Synonyms[1] | |
Millettia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. It consists of about 169 species of shrubs, lianas or trees, which are native to tropical and subtropical regions of sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Indochina, southern China, Malesia, and New Guinea. Typical habitats include tropical rain forest and seasonally-dry lowland and upland forest and forest margins, woodland, thicket, wooded grassland, and secondary vegetation.[1]
Description
In 1834, in Prodromus Florae Peninsulae Indiae Orientalis
Calyx cup-shaped, lobed or slightly toothed. Corolla papilionaceous: vexillum recurved, broad, emarginate, glabrous or silky on the back. Stamens diadelphous (9 and 1), the tenth quite distinct. Legume flat, elliptic or lanceolate, pointed, coriaceous, thick margined, wingless indehiscent, 1-2 seeded: valves closely cohering with each other all round the seeds and between them. Twining or arboreous. Leaves very large, unequally pinnated: leaflets opposite, with a setaceous partial stipule at the base of each partial petiole. Racemes axillary, more or less branched and compound. Flowers pretty large, purplish, pedicelled on shortish diverging partial peduncles.[3]
Etymology
Long known to residents of the
In the 1820s-1830s Charles Millett, a plant collector and an official with the
Uses
Species are used locally as fuelwood, fish poisons, insecticides, medicine, ornamentals, and nitrogen fixers for soil rehabilitation in agroforestry. Several species are used for timber, including the African species wenge (M. laurentii De Wild.) and panga panga or mpande (M. stuhlmannii Taub.). The timber is used for flooring, furniture, cabinet work, construction, veneers, joinery, and agricultural implements.[1]
Species
Selected species include:
- Millettia aurea
- Millettia australis - Samson's sinew (Norfolk Island)
- Millettia brandisiana
- Millettia bussei
- Millettia capuronii
- Millettia conraui
- Gagnep.
- Millettia duchesnei
- Millettia elongatistyla
- Millettia eriocarpa
- Millettia galliflagrans
- Millettia grandis – Umzimbeet
- Millettia hitsika
- Millettia lacus-alberti
- Millettia laurentii – Wengé
- Millettia macrophylla
- Millettia micans
- Millettia mossambicensis
- Millettia nathaliae
- Gagnep.
- Millettia nitida
- Millettia orientalis
- Millettia peguensis
- Millettia psilopetala
- Millettia pterocarpa
- Millettia pubinervis Kurz
- Millettia puerarioides Prain
- Millettia richardiana
- Millettia rhodantha
- Millettia sacleuxii
- Millettia schliebenii
- Millettia semseii
- Millettia sericantha
- Millettia stuhlmannii – Panga panga
- Millettia sutherlandii
- Millettia taolanaroensis
- Millettia thonningii
- Millettia usaramensis – Lesser millettia
- Millettia utilis
- Millettia warneckei
- Millettia xylocarpa Miq.
References
- ^ a b c d "Millettia Wight & Arn.". Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 6 September 2023.
- ^ Millettia Wight & Arn. Archived 2010-05-29 at the Wayback Machine, Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN)
- ^ a b Wight, Robert; Arnott, George Arnott Walker (1834). Prodromus Florae Peninsulae Indiae Orientalis: Containing Abridged Descriptions of the Plants Found in the Peninsula of British India, Arranged According to the Natural System, Volume 1. p. 263.
- ^ Subhuti Dharmananda. "MILLETTIA (jixueteng)".
- ^ M. Charters. "The Eponym Dictionary of Southern African Plants — Plant Names L-O".
- ^ Sue Eland (2 October 2021). "Galedupa - Plant Biographies" (PDF).
- ^ Sweet, Robert (1839). Sweet's Hortus Britannicus: Or, A Catalogue of All the Plants Indigenous Or Cultivated in the Gardens of Great Britain, Arranged According to the Natural System, with the Generic and Specific Names, English Names, Accentuation, Derivation of Generic Names (3rd ed.). p. 193.
- ^ Plant Name Details - Leguminosae Pongamia Vent.
- ^ Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History - Proposal No. 549
- ^ Wendy E. Cooper, Darren M. Crayn, Frank A. Zich, Rebecca E. Miller, Melissa Harrison, Lars Nauheimer "A review of Austrocallerya and Pongamia (Leguminosae subfamily Papilionoideae) in Australia, and the description of a new monotypic genus, Ibatiria," Australian Systematic Botany, 32(4), 363-384, (29 August 2019) https://doi.org/10.1071/SB18039