Pithecellobium dulce (Roxb.) Benth.
-
Authority
Isley, Duane. 1973. Leguminosae of the United States: I. Subfamily. Mimosoideae. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 25 (1): 1-152.
-
Family
Mimosaceae
-
Scientific Name
-
Description
Deprecated: mb_convert_encoding(): Handling HTML entities via mbstring is deprecated; use htmlspecialchars, htmlentities, or mb_encode_numericentity/mb_decode_numericentity instead in /home/emu/nybgweb/www-dev/htdocs/science-dev/wp-content/themes/nybgscience/lib/VHMonographsDetails.php on line 179
Species Description - Armed or unarmed shrub to large tree. Leaves 4-foliate, 2 pinnae each with 2 leaflets, initially villosulous, glabrate at maturity; petioles (except of leaves adjacent to inflorescences) longer than secondary axes; cupuliform glands between both pinnae and leaflet pairs; leaflets elliptic, 2-4(-5) cm long, ca 2 cm wide, symmetric or asymmetric. Spines usually present, nodal, 2-12 mm. Flowers in greenish to whitish-yellow heads in simple or branched, terminal racemes; peduncles solitary to fascicled, villosulous. Perianth puberulent to villosulous; calyx ca 1.2 mm, corolla ca 2.5 mm. Legume oblong-curved to circinate, 8-10 cm long, 1-1.5 cm wide, constricted between seeds but not septate, dehiscent; valves reddish, coriaceous. Seeds black with a white aril.
-
Discussion
CN 2n = 26 (Sampath & Ramanathan, 1949).
-
Distribution
S Florida and Texas, occasional in cultivation and escaped. Introduced in Old World. March-April. Native to tropical America where widely cultivated.