Sophora (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Sophora is a genus of about 45 species of small trees and shrubs in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family, Fabaceae. The species are native to southeast Europe, southern Asia, Australasia, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and western South America. The generic name is derived from sophera, an Arabic name for a pea-flowered tree. The genus formerly had a broader interpretation including many other species now treated in other genera, notably Styphnolobium (pagoda tree genus), which differs in lacking nitrogen fixing bacteria (rhizobia) on the roots, and Calia (the mescalbeans). Styphnolobium has galactomannans as seed polysaccharide reserve, in contrast Sophora contains arabinogalactans, and Calia amyloid.