prairie acacia
Acacia angustissima
Summary 4
Acaciella angustissima (Prairie acacia, White ball acacia, Ocpatl, Palo de Pulque) is most recognized for its drought tolerance and its ability to be used as a green manure and ground covering. It is a perennial, deciduous, and belongs to the Fabaceae family (bean/legume) and as it grows it starts as a shrub but eventually matures to a small tree. The tree has a high density of leaves along with small clumps of white flowers and creates...
Description 5
Pea Family (Fabaceae). Prairie acacia is a native, perennial, warm-season, hardy, deep taproot legume. A smooth and small rounded shrub, forming colonies by means of woody rhizomes with aerial stems that are thornless and rarely over three feet tall. The plant has an attractive and delicate fern-like foliage which closes at night and when touched. Stems are thin, usually unbranched, glabrate, and ridged. Leaves are alternate, the blade divided into usually 3-12 pairs of segments, these again divided into 6-20 pairs of tiny leaflets. Flowers are small and white to creamy yellow. It has 5 petals and stamens numerous, long, and protruding. Flowers numerous, congested in rounded terminal clusters on long stalks arising from upper leaf axils. Fruit is brownish flat seed pod 4-7 cm (1.6-2.8 in) long and 6-8 mm (0.25-0.3) wide. Plant is similar in appearance to Illinois bundleflower, Desmanthus illinoensis, but the fruit and leaf structures are different.
Sources and Credits
- (c) bbelcher, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by bbelcher
- (c) jerickson, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by jerickson
- (c) Jack, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Jack
- Adapted by Amber Leung from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacia_angustissima
- Public Domain, http://eol.org/data_objects/1376318
More Info
iNat Map
| Family | Fabaceae |
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