Baptisia bracteata Muhl. ex Elliott x B. sphaerocarpa Nutt.

  • Authority

    Isely, Duane. 1981. Leguminosae of the United States. III. Subfamily Papilionoideae: tribes Sophoreae, Podalyrieae, Loteae. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 25 (3): 1-264.

  • Family

    Fabaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Baptisia bracteata Muhl. ex Elliott x B. sphaerocarpa Nutt.

  • Description

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    Species Description - Plants intermediate between parents or resembling B. bracteata. Stems usually ascending, glabrate to pubescent. Leaves petioled .5-6 mm; leaflets obovate or oblanceolate, 3-7 cm, 2-4 r, usually glabrate. Stipules partially persistent, commonly small. Racemes ascending or drooping, rarely horizontal and secund; few-or many-flowered, short or exserted, bracts persistent (-deciduous). Pedicels 515 mm. Flowers bright to pale yellow. Ovary with short or long, abundant pubescence; ovules 10-15. Legume usually globose-lancoid and acuminate-tapering but varying to bluntly ellipsoid. The B. bracteata parents include both vars glabrescens and laevicaulis.

  • Discussion

    B. bushii Small (1903). B. X intermedia Larisey (1940). B. x strict a Larisey (1940). B. villosa auct. pro parte. B. laevicaulis x viridis. B. leucophaea x sphaerocarpa. B. leucophaea x viridis. B. sphaerocarpa x bracteata. B. sphaerocarpa x leucophaea. B. viridis x laevicaulis. B. viridis x leucophaea. Harper (1938) was possibly the first to report a supposed hybrid between these species. Larisey (1940a) reiterated Harper’s opinion, and based her Baptisia x intermedia on his material and similar plants from southwestern Louisiana and adjacent Texas. She believed the more northern B. x stricta also to represent hybrids between these species. Turner and coworkers (e.g., Turner and Alston, 1959; Alston and Turner, 1963) discussed hybrid swarms that cover “thousands of acres’’ in pastured areas of the Texas coastal prairies. They said that wherever these species occur together “hybrids or their derivatives have been detected, and backcrossing is largely in the direction of B. laevicaulis.’’ But the identification of specimens without this kind of supporting field data is commonly speculative. The hybrids, probably because of backcrossing, are diverse in appearance, and some resemble Baptisia bracteata x nuttalliana. The types of Larisey’s (1940a) species are probably B. bracteata x sphaerocarpa, but some of the material she cited is more likely B. bracteata var laevicaulis or B. bracteata x nuttalliana. Small (loc. cit.) distinguished his Baptisia bushii from the B. leucophaea-laevicaulis group primarily by the shorter pedicels. The type specimen (Bush 68 NY!) looks like a hybrid and has inconspicuous, appressed pubescence as originally described. Larisey (1940a) however, distorted this concept by terming the species “woolly-tomentose” and referring diversely pubescent specimens to B. bushii. Although both B. sphaerocarpa and B. bracteata var laevicaulis are usually glabrate, Turner and Alston (1959) reported some pubescent plants in hybrid populations, and some of Larisey’s cited plants may represent this hybrid form. Others are probably the lower Rio Grande Valley (variant 3) form of var laevicaulis.

  • Distribution

    E Texas and adjacent Louisiana, sporadically n to Oklahoma. Coastal grassland, pastures, roadsides; locally abundant. April-May.

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