Crotalaria retusa L.

• Authority

  Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.

• Family

  Fabaceae

• Scientific Name

  Crotalaria retusa L.

• Description

  
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  Species Description - This plant is a showy-flowered weed, common in fields, gardens and waste places in most parts of all tropical and subtropical regions of both the New World and the Old. Its original home, before the era of Agriculture, was probably in India, at least it was first made known, botanically, from that part of the world, and it appears to have followed Agriculture to nearly all regions in which the climate is favorable to its existence. It is common in Porto Rico. The genus Crotalaria consists of some 250 species of mostly herbaceous plants, some annual in duration, some perennial, some tall, some low, their flowers mainly yellow, nearly all of tropical distribution, only a few being found in temperate regions. The name is from the Greek for a rattle, referring to the seeds which, when ripe, become loosened within the pods, and rattle when shaken, whence also the English name Rattlebox; the Spanish name Cascabelillo, is applied to them in Porto Rico, where the one here illustrated is abundant, and seven other wild kinds also grow, as well as several exotic species planted for cover-crops, and for nitrogenizing the soil, important in Agriculture. Some of the species have simple leaves, in others the leaves are 3-foliolate, and some exotic ones 5-foliolate or 7-foliolate. Crotalaria retusa, often called Yellow Lupin, but it is not a Lupine, and the Spanish name Sonajuelas is also used for it, is an annual, upright, silky-hairy herb, from 4 to 10 decimeters high, usually branched. Its leaves are simple, oblanceolate or oblong, from 4 to 8 centimeters long, smooth on the upper side, silky-hairy beneath, the apex usually notched (whence the specific name retusa) but sometimes rounded, the base wedge-shaped. The flowers are stalked, and form conspicuous clusters at the end of the stem or the branches; the 2 -lipped calyx is about 1 centimeter long; the corolla consists of a broad, variegated standard about 2 centimeters long, the wings and the blunt keel shorter; the ten stamens are partly united by their filaments, five of them with very small anthers, five with larger ones; the style is somewhat curved. The pod is oblong, swollen, about 3 centimeters long and 1 centimeter thick, smooth, short-beaked, and contains hard seeds. Our illustration was first published in "Addisonia", plate 248.

• Discussion

  Yellow Lupin Matraca Pea Family Crotalaria retusa Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 715. 1753.