Is Part of a Plant Family With Pods That Contain a Single Row of Seeds
Fabaceae (legume family)
Legumes are a very large family of 16,000 species in nearly all of the world�s habitats. Champion drought tolerators, they are virtually abundant in the arid torrid zone. Their prevalence in the Sonoran Desert flora (for example, there are 53 legume species in the Tucson Mountains, 8% of its plants) reflects this desert�s tropical origin. N of the Mexican edge most of the mutual Sonoran Desert trees are legumes.
Description
The family was named Leguminosae for its fruit, which in near species is a legume (the technical term for bean pod, a single-chambered sheathing enclosing what appears to be a single row of seeds that is actually 2 rows�alternating seeds are attached to opposite halves of the pod). There are three subfamilies with flowers that expect very different from one another at first glance, but arose from a common pattern:
Caesalpinia subfamily
Probably the basic pattern from which the other ii subfamilies evolved. The flowers have 5 separate, conspicuous petals, i of which (the banner) is always a different size, shape, or colour from the other 4. There are 10 stamens, as in nearly all legumes; in this subfamily they are carve up. All species are woody. Examples include royal poinciana or arbol de fuego (Delonix regia), palo verde (Cercidium and Parkinsonia), bird-of- paradise (Caesalpinia), and cassias (Cassia).
Mimosa subfamily
The petals are fused in this group, but they�re so tiny that they are not noticeable. What one sees is a powder puff of stamens. It�s easy to visualize the derivation of flowers of this group from the above subfamily. First with a caesalpinoid flower such as a palo verde blossom. Reduce the petals until they nigh disappear, greatly elongate the filaments of the stamens, and combine several to many flowers into a tight cluster. The visual issue is a ball or cylinder of stamens (powder-puffs or catkins, respectively). All species are woody. Examples include acacias (Acacia), mesquite (Prosopis), fairy squeegee (Calliandra), and mimosa (Albizia).
Papilionoid (pea) subfamily
This grouping is characterized by 3 upper petals and 2 lower fused petals, and 9 of the 10 filaments are fused with the 10th beingness split. This subfamily�s flowers diverged from Caesalpinoids in another management from the mimosoids. Once again, visualize a palo verde flower. Enlarge the imprint (top) petal until it�s the largest role of the blossom. Fold the 2 adjacent petals forward until they touch at their tips; these are called the wing petals. Finally, reduce the remaining lower two petals and fuse them forth their bottom edges to class a boat-shaped construction called the keel. Conceal most of the keel between the wings, and hide the stamens and pistil inside the keel. The result is a sugariness pea-shaped bloom. This subfamily includes many herbaceous every bit well as woody species. Examples are desert ironwood (Olneya tesota), all cultivated beans (Phaseolus, etc.), lupines (Lupinus), and of class, sweetness peas (Lathyrus). In a few species, such as New World coral beans (Erythrina), the banner is reduced rather than enlarged.
Notes
Plants crave big quantities of 3 minerals: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. The latter ii elements are present in soil, but nitrogen is an atmospheric gas that plants cannot use directly. Some soil bacteria and cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) tin can fix nitrogen (convert it into nitrate or other chemical compound) into a form which plants tin can use. Another major source of nitrogen is the decomposition of dead plants and animals. In barren soils specially, where decomposition of organic material is dull, plant growth is often limited by the available corporeality of soil nitrogen. Many legumes harbor colonies of nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their roots. The plant provides favorable habitat and carbon for the bacteria, and the bacteria in turn provide surplus nitrate to the plants. Nitrogen-fixing legumes have higher concentrations of nitrogen compounds in their tissues than non-fixing plants. When legume leaves decompose they release the nitrogen and enrich the soil. Nitrogen is an essential chemical element in proteins, and then nitrogen-fixing plants can make large crops of seeds with high protein contents (more 50 percentage in some species).
The typically big, nutritious, and abundant seeds of legumes are an important food source for many wild fauna species, including insects such every bit bruchid beetles. Adult bruchids are flower beetles, while the larvae of most species are seed predators. Bruchids are not restricted to legumes, but there is a myriad of species that specialize on legume seeds. Some species are very host-specific, while others feed on a wide range of seeds. Decades of intensive study of the bruchid-seed relationship would likely not reveal all aspects of this tiny part of the ecological web.
Acacia constricta
English name: whitethorn acacia
Spanish names: huizache, vinorama, chaparro prieto (squat and night), vara prieta (dark stick), gigantillo (little giant), largoncillo
Clarification
This acacia is a large, deciduous shrub 6 to 10 feet (ii-3 m) alpine with twice-compound, greyness-dark-green leaves. It tin become a pocket-sized tree in deep soil. Inch-long (2.five cm), white spines are prominent on young plants; mature shrubs are ofttimes thornless. The flowers are bright xanthous balls of stamens; they bloom in tardily bound and again after summer rains.
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Range
This establish is common in the southern half of Arizona southward to central Mexico and west to the gulf coast of Mexico and Texas. There are disjunct populations in northern and southern Baja California.
Notes
A. constricta�southward life span is about seventy years. It is odd that the flowers advertise strongly with both brilliant xanthous colour and strong fragrance, but they offer little reward�no nectar and sparse pollen. Pollinators do non visit in large numbers, but whitethorn manages to set good seed crops. The Seri used the leaves and seeds in a medicinal tea for stomach problems.
Similar Species
Acacia neovernicosa has nigh identical foliage and flowers; it is distinguished past its sparsely-branched, erect-simply-crooked stems. It�due south a Chihuahuan Desert shrub.
Acacia greggii
English language names: catclaw acacia, await-a-minute bush
Spanish names: u�a de gato (cat�s claw), t�sota, gatu�o, palo chino (Chinese stick), tepame, algarroba
Description
Catclaw is a deciduous shrub or modest tree, sometimes xx anxiety (6 grand) tall, but commonly less than half that. The stems bear curved, very sharp prickles. Gray-dark-green, twice-compound leaves with pocket-size leaflets are seldom dumbo enough to cake the view through the plant. The stake yellowish flowers are borne in dense, brusk catkins in late jump.
Range
It is common from southern Nevada south to central Baja California and southern Sonora and west to Texas and Chihuahua. Among the woody legumes, this species penetrates the farthest northward and the farthest into arid habitat.
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Notes
The O�odham drinkable a tea from the roots for both stomach and kidney problems. The Seri and Yaqui use the wood in bows.
The fragrant flowers, dissimilar those of A. constricta, produce nectar and attract many insects including bees, flies, and collywobbles. Tree band counting shows that this acacia tin can live at to the lowest degree 130 years.
Tree catclaw, A. occidentalis, is vegetatively very similar to catclaw acacia, just grows to forty feet (12 1000) alpine. The inflorescences are balls instead of catkins and are extremely fragrant. Tree catclaw is nearly endemic to Sonora and occasionally found in cultivation.
Acacia willardiana (palo blanco, �white stick�) is more typical of thornscrub than desert, just needs to be mentioned considering it is distinctive for several reasons. Information technology is an upright, sparsely-branched tree to nigh xxx anxiety (ix thou) alpine. Its bark is smooth and a striking white color in the finest specimens; information technology peels off in papery sheets. The leafage is and so thin that it casts a scarcely detectable shade. Finally, the leaves are unique among New Globe acacias in being phyllodes. A phyllode is a flat, expanded petiole that resembles a leaf; the real leaflets fall off shortly subsequently they�re produced. (Most of the g Australian acacia species accept phyllodes rather than typical leaves.) This palo blanco is endemic to Sonora, but another white-trunked legume tree in Baja California, Lysiloma candidum, is as well called palo blanco.
Calliandra eriophylla
English name: fairy squeegee
Spanish names: cosahui, huajillo, cabeza (pelo) de �ngel (affections�due south head, affections�s head pilus)
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Description
This is a spreading shrub, usually about two feet (sixty cm) tall and twice as broad with thin semi-evergreen foliage of small, twice-compound, leaves. One-inch (2.5 cm) mimosoid flower heads are pale to deep pink. The plants bloom profusely in tardily winter and sporadically at most any flavor in response to proficient rains.
Range
Fairy squeegee grows from southern Arizona and southeastern California south to fundamental Mexico and northern Baja California.
Notes
Fairy duster has several pollinators, including bees, flies, and butterflies. It is among the start perennials to bloom in Arizona Upland, typically in February.
Cercidium floridum [Parkinsonia torreyana, Cercidium peninsulare]
English language name: blue palo verde
Spanish names: palo verde, retama (bloom)
Description
Blueish palo verde is a multi-trunked deciduous tree to 40 feet (12 m) alpine. Terminal twigs are dense and branches droop to the basis, creating a hemispherical mound. (Floods may break off lower limbs, exposing the trunks and creating more normal-looking trees.) The bawl of twigs and immature branches is bluish-green. Blueish palo verde has twice-pinnate leaves, each segment having only 2 to 4 pairs of relatively large leaflets. A short, straight spine is hidden beneath each leaf (often absent in mature copse). Trees flower for 2 weeks in mid-spring, usually April in Arizona Upland. The bright xanthous flowers are produced in such profusion that they completely muffle the branches. The banner petal is slightly larger than the other 4 and has modest orange dots. Pods contain ane or 2 flattened, extremely difficult seeds the size of pocket-sized lima beans.
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Range
This tree occurs from southern Arizona and southeastern California to northern Sinaloa. It also occurs in the southern half of Baja California, but not in the north, presumably due to the n�south farthermost aridity. In most of its range this is a dry-riparian species, restricted to washes because it needs more water than is provided by rainfall. Just subsequently the terminal Ice Age the climate was wetter than today, and blueish palo verdes grew beyond the washes as foothill palo verdes do today.
Notes
The green bark color of palo verdes is due to chlorophyll-bearing tissue. Every bit do many other species, these trees conserve h2o by dropping their leaves during dry seasons, but palo verdes can still carry on some photosynthesis. Blue palo verde as well drops its leaves in response to cool fall temperatures.
The flowers are pollinated by numerous species of lonely bees that get together pollen and cache it in burrows for their grubs to feed on. The primary palo verde bee is Centris pallida, only in that location are 6 other species of Centris that visit palo verdes, in addition to sweat bees, several leaf-cutter bees, bumblebees, and carpenter bees. Bee specialist Bob Schmalzel casually identified virtually 20 different species of bees foraging in a single palo verde tree at the same time.
Mature pods autumn and remain under the trees for several weeks, where bruchid beetle larvae consume many of the seeds. Javelina and rock squirrels are among the few other animals that commonly eat the very difficult seeds. A band of javelina feeding on these beans sounds like a rock crusher; the racket carries a considerable altitude. Nearly indigenous peoples did non eat the seeds, but they are a fairly important food source for the Seri, who grind them into flour. Freshly-matured seeds with hardened seed coats are impermeable to water; they cannot germinate until the seed coat is either scarified past a flash flood or weathered for a few years in the soil.
Blue palo verde is fast-growing and fairly brusk-lived. Plants in cultivation seem to become senescent later on about xxx years, and probably don�t live as long every bit a century in the wild. The soft woods makes poor lumber. It is also poor for firewood, called-for apace while emitting a stiff, unpleasant odor, and making no coals.
Cercidium microphyllum [Parkinsonia microphyllum]
English language names: foothill palo verde, littleleaf palo verde, yellow palo verde
Spanish names: palo verde, leb�n retama, palo brea (tar stick)
Description
Foothill palo verde is a multitrunked, deciduous, large shrub or pocket-sized tree to about xv feet (4.6 m) tall, rarely to 30 anxiety (9 m) in deep soils. The xanthous-green branches are stiff and strongly upright, not drooping every bit in bluish palo verde. Leaves are twice-pinnate, each fork bearing 3 to 5 pairs of tiny leaflets. Foliage is thin even at the peak of the rainy season, and absent during the dry flavor. There are no spines below the leaves equally in blue palo verde, but each twig terminates in a thorn. The tree flowers profusely for 2 weeks in late spring, first merely every bit blue palo verdes in the aforementioned area are finishing. Flowers are less bright than those of blue palo verde; the petals are pale yellow and the banner is white. The pods contain 2 to four or more navy-bean sized seeds with thinner, softer shells than those of blue palo verde.
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Range
This plant occurs almost throughout the Sonoran Desert except in the driest regions at the caput of the Gulf of California and in the land of California where there is insufficient summer rainfall.
Notes
See blue palo verde for information almost photosynthesis and pollination. Foothill palo verde is more drought resistant than blue palo verde; it is not restricted to washes and is common on rocky hillsides. These very slow-growing trees are more than than a century one-time at maturity, and desert ecologist Forest Shreve thought they could alive up to 400 years. (Palo verdes do not make growth rings, so age-dating past counting rings is not possible.) The thin-shelled seeds do non require scarification to germinate. Subsequently maturing and falling they are apace gathered and consumed past a multifariousness of rodents and other seed eaters. Antelope ground squirrels and pocket mice are major seed dispersers. They bury seeds for later consumption; burying terminates reinfestation by bruchid beetles and preserves the viability of uninfested seeds. Seeds that have not been retrieved and eaten germinate when the summer rains come.
Humans have also relied on the seeds for food; crops are abundant in most years. The O�odham preferred to consume the green seeds or pods; young seeds are tender and taste much like fresh peas. The Seri ate the fresh light-green seeds and also toasted, basis, and ate the mature seeds in a gruel. They usually raided pack rat nests to obtain the mature pods, so winnowed the seeds.
Four species of palo verde grow in the Sonoran Desert and sometimes naturally hybridize. Foothill palo verde hybridizes fairly ordinarily with Mexican palo verde (Parkinsonia) where both species grow in proximity. There are a handful of foothill/blue palo verde hybrids in the Tucson expanse and probably elsewhere. A single hybrid of bluish and Mexican palo verdes is documented (blooming seasons rarely overlap). Hybrids with desirable traits are being propagated, notably the complex hybrid �Desert Museum� palo verde, which is cock, fast-growing, thornless, long-blooming, and relatively tidy.
Lupinus spp.
English language name: lupine
Spanish names: lupino, altramuz
Description
Lupines number well-nigh 200 species of annual and perennial herbs and semiwoody shrubs worldwide. Our desert species are all annuals. Lupinus sparsiflorus (at present including L. arizonicus) has palmate leaves and flowering spikes almost a foot (30 cm) tall. The blue to imperial pea-shaped flowers are nigh a ¼-inch (13 mm) long, ordinarily bloom in March in Arizona Upland.
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Range
One or more species of lupine can exist constitute in nearly every habitat in the Sonoran Desert region. Lupinus sparsiflorus is widespread in the Mohave and northern Sonoran deserts.
Notes
Lupines are amid the 3 most common showy spring annuals of Arizona Upland. They cover many foursquare miles of desert in wet years.
In some parts of the globe lupine seeds are gathered and eaten. But some species take toxic seeds, and Lupinus sparsiflorus is specially poisonous. Neither the Seri nor O�odham have a applied use for lupine, but both cultures know it well enough to take named information technology for its sun-tracking addiction. The hand-shaped leaves move to face up the sunday all day, then fold up at night. The Seri proper name ways �sun-watcher� and the O�odham name means �sun-hand.�
Olneya tesota
English language name: desert ironwood
Spanish names: palo fierro (iron stick), t�sota, palo de hierro (iron stick), comit�n
Description
Desert ironwood is a tree up to 35 feet (11 one thousand) tall with twice-compound leaves and a pair of sharp, curved spines at each node. The nearly evergreen foliage is dense and deep green in wet years, sparser and gray-greenish during drought. In the extremely barren islands in the cardinal Gulf of California the trees become completely leafless at times. Mature trees also shed their leaves a few weeks before flowering in May, then re-leaf when the summer rains come; only limbs that will flower drop leafage. Bloom is heavy only about 2 out of 5 years. The pea-shaped flowers are ordinarily pale lavender, but occasionally rich purple-violet. The flowering menses is brief, lasting 10-18 days.
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Range
Desert ironwood ranges throughout the Sonoran Desert and is almost completely bars to it. Common cold air drainage restricts it to the warmer slopes in a higher place valley floors in Arizona Upland. Seedlings cannot establish where temperatures regularly autumn below 20�F (-vi�C). In the most arid subdivisions, such every bit Lower Colorado River Valley, information technology is restricted to washes.
Notes
The seeds are eaten past many animals; they are fairly soft-shelled, taste somewhat like peanuts (another famous legume), and are high in protein. They are mildly toxic and probably should non be eaten in quantity without proper preparation. The Seri cook them in 2 changes of h2o.
Desert ironwood replaces palo verde and mesquite as the major nurse tree in the Cardinal Gulf Coast and parts of the Lower Colorado River Valley subdivisions. In those habitats 165 species have been documented having ironwood every bit nurse trees, and some of them require this species.
Desert ironwood grows slowly and lives long. Unlike many other trees, desert ironwood�due south rings are often incomplete or missing, then reliable counting to determine exact age is non viable. On the basis of long-term observations, some botanists approximate that the trees can live for at least 300 years, and mayhap twice that. One aboriginal-looking tree at the Desert Museum was determined by carbon-dating to be nigh 180 years former. In more arid habitats some trees are very likely to be much older.
Decomposition later on expiry is extremely slow. The dark-colored heartwood is rich in toxic chemicals and essentially non-biodegradable; it physically weathers away over many centuries. Dead copse can remain standing for a millennium; small firewood-sized chunks have been carbon-dated at 1600 years.
The wood is extremely dense; it will not float in h2o. (There are several such trees in the earth that are called ironwood, so the total proper noun desert ironwood should be used to avoid defoliation.) Information technology�s the favorite forest used by the Seri Indians to brand their famous wood carvings. This craft developed in the early 1960s for tourist trade purposes; more recently, non-Seri neighbors of the Seris in Mexico accept mass-produced similar (but often cruder) figures.
Desert ironwood makes fantabulous firewood; information technology burns long and hot and makes good dress-down. Harvest for woodcarvings and charcoal has well-nigh extirpated large copse in most of Sonora, and campers and illegal woodcutters are depleting attainable populations in the Us. Because of this and their slow growth rate, it is no longer upstanding to burn desert ironwood. It is also illegal; this tree is protected in both Sonora and Arizona.
Parkinsonia aculeata
English language names: Mexican palo verde, Jerusalem thorn, retama
Spanish names: bagote, junco marino, cacaporo, guac�poro, retama, palo verde, mezquite verde, espinillo
Clarification
This is a tree with strongly ascending branches to forty feet (12 m) alpine with sparse foliage that casts little shade. The leaves are very large, each consisting of up to four narrow pinnae up to a foot (thirty cm) long. Each pinna (plural pinnae) of this tree is a narrow leafage axis bearing ii rows of leaflets, somewhat resembling its namesake�a feather. The 10 to 40 pairs of tiny leaflets autumn off at the first sign of water stress. The pinnae are shed during more severe droughts. There are 2 long, precipitous spines at the base of each leafage; these are sometimes forked on vigorous growth. The bright xanthous flowers are borne profusely for a calendar month or more than in late spring, and sporadically during the other warm months. The imprint of older flowers is orange. Pods usually contain 3 or more seeds.
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Range
This tree is native to the New Globe torrid zone and has been introduced worldwide. It was probably introduced to Arizona, where it is primarily associated with human-contradistinct sites such equally vacant lots and roadsides.
Notes
Though information technology tin grow 8 anxiety (2.4 m) a year, Mexican palo verde has numerous drawbacks as a residential tree. The fell spines make pruning an unpleasant chore. The long, stringy leaves are likewise thin to cast useful shade and are shed in slap-up quantities that create a continuous mess beneath the tree, especially when they become lodged in other landscape plants. Lastly, seedlings volunteer aggressively, and trees don�t live longer than about 30 years.
Mesquites
Prosopis velutina [Prosopis juliflora var. velutina]
English name: velvet mesquite
Spanish names: mezquite, algarroba, chachaca, p�chita (pods merely)
Prosopis glandulosa var. torreyana [Prosopis juliflora var. torreyana]
English language name: dearest mesquite
Spanish names: mezquite, algarroba, chachaca
Following Lt. Edward Beale�s exploration of the Chihuahuan Desert in the 1850s, his report touted mesquite as the central to settling the Due west. It was superb for lumber, firewood, and food and shelter for both man and livestock. He was right, only he was alee of his time. It�s ironic that many ranchers today consider mesquite a rangeland pest, specially in Texas.
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Description
Both of these mesquites are deciduous big shrubs or trees. Honey mesquite grows 10 to 30 feet (iii-ix 1000) tall; velvet mesquite may reach 55 anxiety (17 m). Honey mesquite normally has 2 pinnae with smooth or hairy, vivid green leaflets. Velvet mesquite unremarkably has 4 pinnae with fuzzy, slow green leaflets. The inflorescences are clusters of pale yellowish catkins nigh iii inches (7 cm) long. They bloom in spring and sometimes again in midsummer. Flattened, non-splitting pods are about 8 inches (xx cm) long, consisting of 3 distinct parts. Each of several lentil-shaped seeds is enclosed in a very durable woody capsule, the endocarp. Betwixt the thin pare (exocarp) and endocarp is the mesocarp, a mealy pulp. Mesquite pods are thus not technically legumes (bean pods), but the copse are all the same in the legume family considering of the flower structure.
Range
Both species occur mainly below 5000 feet (1500 yard) meridian. Honey mesquite is widespread in Arizona, Sonora, and Baja California, and the desert habitats of California. Velvet mesquite is found just in Arizona and Sonora. The two species hybridize where they occur together. (Texas beloved mesquite, P. glandulosa var. glandulosa, occurs from New Mexico to Trans Pecos Texas. It has recently colonized Arizona along I-ten; the seeds are being dispersed by trucks transporting cattle and their seed-laden cowpies from Texas to California.)
Notes
The flowers are pollinated mainly by bees, and the resulting pods are produced in huge quantities in practiced years. Fallen pods are quickly infested with bruchid beetle larvae, and eaten by a variety of larger animals. Germination is enhanced past passage through the guts of large animals; otherwise a few years of weathering is needed to release the seeds from the endocarp. The leafage is also an important browse for numerous animals. Mesquite is long-lived, probably a couple of centuries in favorable sites.
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The mesquite�s root system is the deepest documented; a live root was discovered in a copper mine over 160 feet (50 one thousand) below the surface. Like all known trees, however, 90% of mesquite roots are in the upper 3 feet of soil. This is where most of the water and oxygen are. The deep roots presumably enable a mesquite to survive astringent droughts, but they are not its main life support.
Dense mesquite stands are called bosques (pronounced BOSE case). Once arable on floodplains in the southwest U.Southward., virtually have been cut downwardly or killed by rapid lowering of h2o tables. Only scattered remnants still exist. In the low desert, velvet mesquite is restricted to flood plains and large washes. At college elevations it likewise occurs on dry hillsides. On the rocky slopes of Arizona Upland it is thin and dwarfed to shrub size.
Understanding the natural habitat and ecology of mesquite in southern Arizona requires a deep time perspective. Mesquite coevolved with large herbivores, such as mastodons and basis sloths, which ate the pods and and so dispersed them widely in their feces. The bruchid seed parasites were killed by the gut juices, profoundly increasing seed viability. When this Pleistocene megafauna became extinct virtually 10,000 years ago, mesquite�southward range largely contracted to flood plains and washes, where seeds were scarified by floods or weathered in wet soil. Climate was also influential, since mesquite persisted on the slopes of the Waterman Mountains westward of Tucson until 3800 years ago.
The introduction of cattle to North America refilled the vacant ecological niche of the extinct native herbivores, and mesquite began recolonizing its former hillside habitats. Many ranchers viewed this range expansion as an undesirable new invasion and attempted to eradicate the found. A depression density of mesquite trees in grassland is really beneficial to livestock and wildlife; grass growing below these trees is more nutritious and remains green longer into the dry flavour. The shade is too beneficial for large animals. On the other manus, overgrazing causes a reduction in fire that controls mesquite populations in grassland; this allows the trees to become so numerous that they exclude grasses. Because dense mesquite outcompetes grass for h2o and low-cal and because mesquite groves don�t back up fire, this conversion is permanent (on a human time scale) without concrete intervention.
Velvet mesquite has been a major food source for indigenous peoples. The mesocarp is sugariness, containing xx percentage to xxx per centum sugars in the best copse. (The pods of honey mesquite are bitter.) The seeds contain nigh 35 percent protein, more than than soybeans, though it�due south difficult to divide them efficiently from the inedible endocarp. Mesquite meal (the mesocarp) is tasty besides every bit sugariness, and its popularity in modern cuisine is increasing. Pod production is sufficient to make mesquite commercially viable as a cultivated crop; inquiry and development toward this end are ongoing. The Tohono O�odham appear to be on the verge of commercial success with this ingather. Mesquite flour as well has major conservation potential, in that it can be made into �staff of life�without baking. Most of the earth�s people melt over wood fires, and demand for fuel-woods is a major cause of deforestation.
The wood is difficult, bonny, and in high demand for quality article of furniture. The sapwood is yellow, the heartwood rich reddish-dark-brown. Information technology is evermore expensive now that most of the great bosques have been lost to habitat destruction.
Mesquite has recently surpassed hickory as the most pop smoke flavoring for food. Because of the overharvesting, its wood should not exist used for this purpose; burning dried pods imparts the same flavor.
The inner bark furnished both Indians and early settlers with material for basketry, coarse fabrics, and medicine to treat a variety of disorders. Gum exuded from the stem is used for manufacture of candy (gumdrops), mucilage for mending pottery, and blackness dye.
Senna covesii and S. bauhinioides [Cassia spp.]
English name: desert senna
Castilian names: dais, hoja sen, rosamar�a (rosemary)
Description
Both species are small subshrubs with fuzzy gray-green leaves. They are most hands distinguished by the number of leaflets; S. bauhinioides has 2, Due south. covesii has four or 6. Foliage is shed during dry seasons. Rains trigger short spikes of yellow caesalpinoid flowers, generally in jump and late summer.
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Range
Both species are widespread in the Sonoran Desert and into the barren tropics of Mexico. Their ranges overlap in Arizona.
Notes
These and other sennas are buzz-pollinated past large carpenter bees and bumblebees. The anthers of buzz-pollinated flowers don�t split open lengthwise to expose their pollen as in most flowers. Instead each anther has a minor pore at one end that is too small for even the smallest insects to enter. The bloom is so oriented that the bee lands on it hanging upside down with the anther pores facing downward. The bee then vibrates its wing muscles, making an aural buzzing audio different from that of the bee in flight. The pollen is thus shaken out of the anthers onto the hanging bee. The pollen grains are tiny and nonsticky to prevent them from clogging the anther pores. Carpenter bees have peculiarly fine hairs on their bodies for catching this pollen. Every bit the bees visit other flowers, some of the pollen on their bodies gets stuck on the stigmas and effects pollination.
In addition to the sennas, a number of plants in the nightshade family unit (Solanaceae) are buzz-pollinated, including tomatoes. Though they are self-fertile, tomato flowers must be buzzed�ordinarily by wild bees� to dislodge pollen and then that information technology falls onto the stigmas. As recently as the 1980s, greenhouse growers hired workers to vibrate the flowers with electrical toothbrushes to ensure fruit ready. Today they buy commercially-produced bumblebee hives. The bees are not only more efficient pollinators than humans with toothbrushes, they are also less expensive.
Source: https://www.desertmuseum.org/books/nhsd_fabaceae.php
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