Systematics, diversity and forage value of indigenous legumes of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland

Abstract

The diversity of legumes, indigenous to South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland is reported using recorded descriptive and distribution data. A total of 24 tribes, 118 genera and 1662 species were documented with the majority of genera belonging to subfamily Faboideae, tribe Phaseoleae, and the majority of species to tribe Crotalarieae. In terms of distribution patterns, most species were present in the Savanna Biome and Central Bushveld Bioregion. Even though most tribes contain species with secondary metabolites (mainly non-protein amino acids), tribes containing poisonous species are far fewer. Herbs are the key growth form, followed by shrubs, dwarf shrubs and trees. The majority of species are perennials. A map representing the collection intensity for the study area showed that the majority of legumes species were collected in the Fynbos, Savanna and Grassland Biome. It is concluded that indigenous South African legumes are extremely diverse and this denotes the importance of further investigating their forage potential or use in other agricultural practices.

Assessing legumes indigenous to South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland for their pasture potential

“…The classes were divided as follow: ≤20 species per QDGC (low); 21-40 species per QDGC (medium) and 41-66 species per QDGC (high). Interesting to note is when Figure 1 is compared with a collection intensity map published by Trytsman et al (2011) To select QDGCs in which high numbers of cultivated species occur, species numbers in both latitudes and longitudes were plotted separately where the polynomial curves are respectively shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3. The latitudes and longitudes enclosed by the ellipsoids were used to generate a list of legume species present as recorded by PRECIS.…”

Impact of Polyploidy Induction for Salinity Stress Mitigation in Soybean (Glycine max L. Merrill)

“…Especially, with allopolyploidy events giving rise to the ancestral species, Glycine soja is proposed to be a wild progenitor of Glycine max L. (soybean) [ 26 ]. Undoubtedly, species found within the Eurosid 1 angiosperm group constitute many of the most economically and agronomically important leguminous plants ( Table 1 and Figure 2 ), in particular, species of the tribes Vicieae , Cicereae , Dalbergieae , Genisteae , Indigofereae and Phaseoleae [ 27 , 28 ]. Species from these selected families are used as food crops, directly or indirectly, in the form of ripe-mature or unripe-immature pods, as well as mature and immature dry seeds.…”

Salinity Stress Mitigation by Polyploidy Induction in Soybean (Glycine max L. Merrill)

“…Especially, with allopolyploidy events giving rise to the ancestral species, Glycine soja, proposed to be a wild progenitor of Glycine max L. (soybean) [26]. Undoubtedly, species found within the Eurosid 1 angiosperm group constitute many of the most economically and agronomically important leguminous plants (Table 1 and Figure 2), in particular, species of the tribe Vicieae, Cicereae, Dalbergieae, Genisteae, Indigofereae and Phaseoleae [27,28]. Species from these selected families are used as food crops, directly or indirectly in the form of ripe-mature or unripe-immature pods, as well as mature and immature dry seeds.…”

“…Table 1: Species of legumes found within the Eurosid I angiosperm group (Fabidae) constituting some of the most economically important Fabale crops, globally [28].…”