Fabaceae Essential Oil

Trees, shrubs, subshrubs, or herbs. Erect or climbing; often with nitrogen-fixing root nodules.

Morphological Features:

Leaves: Evergreen or deciduous; usually alternate, rarely opposite; typically pinnately or bipinnately compound, occasionally palmately compound or with 3 leaflets, single leaflets, or simple leaves; sometimes modified into leaf-like petioles; leaves may have petioles or be sessile; stipules present or absent, occasionally leaf-like or transformed into spines.

Flowers: Bisexual (rarely unisexual); radially or bilaterally symmetrical; arranged in inflorescences such as racemes, cymes, spikes, heads, or cones; perianth with 2 whorls; sepals 3-5 or 6, free or fused into a tube, occasionally bilabiate or reduced; petals 0-5 or 6, often equal in number to sepals, sometimes fewer or absent; stamens usually 10, occasionally 5 or numerous (in Mimosoideae); carpels usually solitary, rarely multiple and free, superior ovary, 1-celled, often with a stalk or sessile; single style and stigma at the apex.

Fruit: Typically a pod (legume) with various shapes; dehiscent along the suture or indehiscent; sometimes breaking into segments containing single seeds.

Seeds: Usually with leathery seed coats, occasionally membranous; attached to variable-length funicles; sometimes surrounded by a fleshy pseudaril formed from the funicle; large embryo, often with little or no endosperm.

Distribution and Habitat:

Approximately 650 genera and 18,000 species worldwide. Tropical regions are dominated by woody species in the subfamily Mimosoideae and the tribe Caesalpinieae, while temperate regions have herbaceous species in the subfamily Faboideae. Fabaceae plants exhibit a wide range of habitats, from plains and mountains to deserts, forests, grasslands, and even aquatic environments—almost everywhere you can find traces of leguminous plants.