Description: Prostrate or climbing perennials, usually pubescent or villous.
Leaves alternate, pinnately 3-foliolate; stipules persistent; stipellate.
Flowers showy, in axillary racemes, umbels, pairs or solitary, often pedunculate; bracts small and caducous or persistent and stipule-like; bracteoles absent. Calyx teeth ± equal to tube, upper two teeth united except at apex. Standard narrow-obovate to ± circular, clavate, often with appendages; keel incurved. Stamens diadelphous; anthers uniform. Ovary with several ovules; style filiform and beardless; stigma terminal.
Pod cylindrical or compressed; seeds ovoid or oblong, prominently arillate.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 16 species, endemic Australia. Australia: all States.
Text by C. Gardner & T. A. James
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Leaflets less than 2.5 cm long; stipules cordate; flowers mostly 1–2 on a peduncle 1–3 cm long | Kennedia prostrata |
| Leaflets mostly more than 2.5 cm long; stipules not cordate; flowers racemose, 2–12 on a peduncle 2–15 cm long | 2 |
| 2 | Leaflets 2–5 cm long, 1–3.5 cm wide, upper surface rugose; pods glabrous | Kennedia procurrens |
| Leaflets 3–13 cm long, 2–10 cm wide, upper surface not rugose, pods hairy
Back to 1 | 3 |
| 3 | Flowers 3–4 cm long; racemes 4–5 cm long, 2–12-flowered; stems more or less glabrous to rusty pubescent | Kennedia rubicunda |
| Flowers 1.2–1.5 cm long; racemes to 25 cm long, mostly 4–20-flowered; stems and leaflets usually densely rusty to whitish pubescent
Back to 2 | Kennedia retrorsa |
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