Wajira grahamiana - Narrow-Pod Wild Pea

Narrow-Pod Wild Pea is a perennial trailing or twining herb, up to 3 m long, from a very thick rootstock. It is named for Robert C. Graham (1786-1845), Scottish physician and botanist. Flowers are pinkish-mauve, 1.1-1.7 cm long; flower-stalk 2-5 mm long; bracteoles persistent, about 1.5 mm long, 3-veined. Sepal-cup hairless; tube 2-3 mm long; sepals 2-3 mm long, the lower sepal almost twice as long as lateral ones, the upper pair united into bifid lip. Standard is symmetrical with two central appendages; keel almost symmetrical, with a beak about 1.5 cm long incurved through almost a full circle. Flower-cluster-stalk is 3.5-14 cm long, hairless; rhachis 1.5-12 cm long. Stem is slender, hairless or sparsely velvet-hairy. Leaflets are 3, linear-lanceshaped to ovate-lanceshaped, ovate, oblong or rhombic, 1.5-9 cm long, hairless or very sparsely hairy particularly along the margins; leaf-stalk 1-5 cm long; stipules ovate-lanceshaped or triangular, 2-3 mm long, persistent. Pod is linear, flattened, 8-14 cm long, hairless, raised sutures along the margin; beak straight. Narrow-Pod Wild Pea is found in Nigeria to Ethiopia and S. Tropical Africa, India to Thailand, Sri Lanka.