''Sarcodum'' is a genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s in the legume family, Fabaceae. It belongs to the subfamily

Faboideae The Faboideae are a subfamily of the flowering plant family Fabaceae or Leguminosae. An acceptable alternative name for the subfamily is Papilionoideae, or Papilionaceae when this group of plants is treated as a family. This subfamily is widely ...

, tribe

Wisterieae Wisterieae is a tribe of flowering plants in the bean family Fabaceae. The tribe was first described in 1994 for the sole genus ''Wisteria'', but was greatly expanded in 2019 to include 13 genera, six of which were new. Five had previously been ...

. Its three species are twining

vine A vine (Latin ''vīnea'' "grapevine", "vineyard", from ''vīnum'' "wine") is any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent (that is, climbing) stems, lianas or runners. The word ''vine'' can also refer to such stems or runners themsel ...

s growing over shrubs, and are native from southeast mainland China to the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capit ...

Description

''Sarcodum'' species are twining

s that scramble over shrubs, growing up to high. The mature stems are reddish brown. The leaves have 8–44 leaflets arranged in pairs, plus a terminal leaflet. Individual leaflets may be up to long by wide. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

s are composed of erect leafy axillary and terminal racemes long. Each flower is long, and has the typical shape of a member of the family Fabaceae. The pink or pinkish lilac standard petal is long by wide with a broad, dark yellow nectar guide. The wing petals are long by across, either much or slightly shorter than the keel petals, and with short basal claws. The keel petals are long by wide. Nine of the stamens are fused together, the tenth is free; all curve upwards at the apex. The seed pods are up to long, initially green, then black and hard when ripe, splitting to release the 4–10 seeds.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Sarcodum'' was established by

João de Loureiro João de Loureiro (1717, Lisbon – 18 October 1791) was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary and botanist. Biography After receiving admission to the Jesuit Order, João de Loureiro served as a missionary in Goa, capital of Portuguese India (3 y ...

in 1790. The genus name is derived from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

(''sarkōdēs'') 'fleshy', referring to the seed pod. A 2019 molecular phylogenetic confirmed the

monophyly In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...

of the genus, placing it in the tribe

. ''Sarcodum'' is most closely related to ''

Endosamara ''Endosamara'' is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the legume family Fabaceae, tribe Wisterieae. Its only species is ''Endosamara racemosa'', a liana found from South India through Indo-China to the Philippines. Description ''Endosa ...

'' and ''

Sigmoidala ''Sigmoidala'' is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae, first established in 2019. Its only species is ''Sigmoidala kityana'', native to Myanmar, northern Thailand and Laos. It was first described by William Grant Craib ...

'' but has smaller leaflets – mostly less than wide as opposed to mostly wide in the other two genera. Its inflorescences are leafy racemes rather than larger erect panicles.

Species

, Plants of the World Online accepted three genera: *''

Sarcodum bicolor ''Sarcodum'' is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae. It belongs to the subfamily Faboideae, tribe Wisterieae. Its three species are twining vines growing over shrubs, and are native from southeast mainland China to the So ...

'' Adema *'' Sarcodum scandens'' Lour. *''

Sarcodum solomonense ''Sarcodum'' is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae. It belongs to the subfamily Faboideae, tribe Wisterieae. Its three species are twining vines growing over shrubs, and are native from southeast mainland China to the So ...

'' R.Clark

Distribution and habitat

The three species of ''Sarcodum'' are native to southeast mainland China and

Hainan Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

and Laos, and south to

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

, the Lesser Sunda Islands, the

Maluku Islands The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located ...

, the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

, Sulawesi and the

. The species grow in low thickets from sea level to .

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5223201 Wisterieae Fabaceae genera