in botany: A genus of the diadelphia order, belonging to the decandra class of plants; and, in the natural method, ranking under the 32nd order, Papilionaceae. There is only one species, the hypogea, an annual plant, and a native of Brazil and Peru. The stalks are long, trail upon the ground, and are furnished with winged leaves, composed of four hairy lobes each. The flowers are produced singly on long peduncles; they are yellow, of the pea kind, and each contains ten awl-shaped stamens, nine of which are tied together, and the upper one stands off. In the centre is an awl-shaped style, crowned with a simple stigma. The germen is oblong, and becomes an oval oblong pod, containing two or three oblong blunt seeds.—This plant is cultivated in all the American settlements for the seeds, which make a considerable part of the food of the slaves. The manner of perfecting them is very singular: for as the flowers fall off, the young pods are forced into the ground by a natural motion of the stalks, and there they are entirely buried, and not to be discovered without digging for them; whence they have taken the name of ground-nuts.