Leucaena glauca Benth.

• Title

  Leucaena glauca Benth.

• Author(s)

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Leucaena glauca Benth.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Leucaena glauca Acacia palida Wild Tamarind Family Mimosaceae Mimosa Family Mimosa glauca Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 520. 1753. Leucaena glauca Bentham in Hooker's Journal of Botany 4; 416. 1848. It has been frequently reported to us, and recorded by others, that horses, after browsing on the leaves of this tree, or shrub, may lose their tails and manes. The plant is common nearly throughout tropical America, ranging north into Florida, attractive when in bloom by round, dense clusters of small, white flowers, and is plentiful in Porto Rico, where it is the only species of its genus, at lower and middle elevations, in both moist and dry climates; it grows also in parts of the Old World tropics, presumably introduced from America. The brownish wood is hard and durable. Other names are Hediondilla and Tantan. Leucaena (Greek, referring to the white flowers) was established by the English botanist Bentham in 1848, with the species here illustrated typical; about 40 species are now known, nearly all natives of tropical America. They have alternate, twice compound leaves, and stalked, globular, clusters of flowers. The calyx is 5-toothed, the 5 petals are separate, as are the 10, long stamens; the ovary is short-stalked, containing many ovules, the very slender style topped by the minute stigma. The fruit is a flat, thin, long pod, which splits completely into 2 papery valves, releasing the many, broad, flat seeds. Leucaena glauca (Latin, bluish-gray, referring to the pale green foliage) is a tree recorded as attaining a maximum height of about 20 meters, but usually much lower, and often shrubby. The slender twigs are finely hairy, the slender-stalked leaves from 10 to 20 centimeters long, with from 3 to 10 pairs of first divisions, each bearing from 10 to 20 pairs of narrow, thin, pointed, oblique leaflets from 8 to 15 millimeters long. The round flower-clusters are from 1.5 to 3 centimeters in diameter, borne on hairy stalks from 2 to 3 centimeters long; the calyx is about 1 millimeter long, the narrow, hairy petals 3 or 4 millimeters long, the stamens about 3 times as long as the petals. The pods are from 9 to 15 centimeters long, about 15 millimeters wide, short-pointed, tapering at the base, the valves with raised margins.