Plant Database

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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Shrub
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Leaf Complexity: Bipinnate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: 3 to 9 feet in height, 2 to 5 feet in width. (webref: 1).
Leaf: "Leaf-stalks 2.5-7 (-9.5) cm, the petiole including (or sometimes reduced to) pulvinus 2-9 (-11) x 0.7-1.2 mm, the longer interpinnal segments (5-) 6-12 (-14) mm, the ventral groove bridged between pinnapairs and there charged with an ascending, commonly vulnerant, yellowish spicule (0.5-) 1.8- 9 (-15) mm; pinnae of leaves below inflorescence 4-7 (-8) juga, decrescent proximally, the rachis of longer ones 1.5-3 (-3.5, in one instance 4) cm, the interfoliolar segments 0.6-1.6 (-2) mm; leaflets of longer pinnae 22-33 juga, decrescent at each end of rachis, the small first pair less than 1 mm distant from minute conic-subulate paraphyllidia less than 0.3 mm (often concealed by setae), the blades linear from obtusangulate or bluntly auriculate base, acute or apiculate at tip, those near mid-rachis (3.5-) 4-9.5 x 0.7-1.2 mm, (4-) 4.5-7 (-8) times as long as wide, all veinless or almost so above, beneath 3-4 (-6)-nerved from pulvinule, the slenderly prominulous nerves all parallel, the midrib a little forwardly displaced, the outermost nerves submarginal and produced to blade apex." (bibref: 1811).
Flower: "Peduncles solitary and 2-4 (-6) together, (10-) 14-3 3 mm; capitula without filaments 5.5-8 mm diam., prior to anthesis moriform, the obtuse 4-ribbed flower buds scaberulous-strigulose distally, sometimes only minutely so, the narrowly clavate receptacle (2.5-) 3-6 mm; bracts oblanceolate 0.6-1.1 mm, deciduous; flowers 4-merous 8-androus, subheteromorphic, the lowest staminate, shorter and more broadly turbinate than the vase-shaped bisexual upper ones; calyx turbinate-campanulate or patelliform, including the variably fimbriolate-denticulate orifice 0.4-0.7 (-0.8) mm, glabrous externally; corolla (1.9-) 2.3-3.2 (-3.5) mm, the ovate, scarcely thickened 1-nerved lobes (0.7-) 0.9-1.3 x 0.7-1.2 mm; filaments pink fading whitish, united at very base into a stemonozone 0.3-0.55 mm, exserted 2.5-5 (-7) mm; ovary at anthesis either glabrous or pilosulous." (bibref: 1811).
Fruit: "Pods 1-3 (-5) per capitulum, ascending from mid-capitulum upward, stipitate or subsessile, the stipe attaining 5 (-7) mm but usually less, the broad-linear, straight or slightly curved body (30-) 40-75 x 9-11 (-13) mm, when well fertilized 8-14 (-15)-seeded, the body broadly or narrowly cuneate at base, at apex broadly rounded but mucronulate or cuspidate, the almost straight replum 0.5-0.9 (-1) mm wide, the reddish-brown or finally nigrescent valves low-convex over the horizontally transverse seeds, the replum and valves alike either minutely puberulent or not so and either strigose with slender subappressed-ascending setae or hirsute with vertically erect ones to 0.7-2 mm, these not concealing the often lustrous surface of valves, the ripe valves breaking up into free-falling, individually indehiscent, transversely oblong articles 4-7.5 mm long, each sealed at either end by a pithy septum 0.5-0.9 mm wide; seeds compressed-oblong-ellipsoid about 5.5-7 x 2.5-3 mm, the testa smooth, dull brown or brown-olivaceous." (bibref: 1811).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Pink
Bloom Time: Apr , May , Jun , Jul , Aug , Sep , Oct , Nov
Bloom Notes: "Flowering and fruiting almost throughout the year." (bifref: 1811).

Distribution

USA: TX
Native Distribution: "In warm temperate and tropical North America: Gulf Coastal Plain from the mouth of Guadelupe River in Calhoun Co., Texas, to Veracruz and Tabasco, thence south to Belize and adjacent Guatemala (Peten); on the Pacific coastal plain in Mexico, from lower Rio Fuerte in north Sinaloa south into Nayarit; one record from Nicaragua; one population in western Cuba (Pinar del Rio)." (bibref: 1811). "Usually in the lower Rio Grande in Cameron and Hidalgo counties, and into Mexico." (bibref: 1). Texas, Mexico, Central America and Cuba. (webref: 6).
Native Habitat: "In low, seasonally wet places, on river-banks and bars, at edge of lagoons, along ditches, sometimes in standing water, discontinuously dispersed, below 250 m." (bibref: 1811). On "seasonal wet areas of clay soils in otherwise dry lake beds and lower areas at the edges of water courses or resacas." (bibref: 1).

Bibliography

Bibref 18 - Feasting Free on Wild Edibles (2002) Angier, B.
Bibref 811 - Tallgrass prairie wildflowers : a field guide to the wildflowers, grasses, and woody vines of the tallgrass prairie (1995) Ladd, D. M. ; F. Oberle

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Web Reference

Webref 6 - Germplasm Resources Information Network - (GRIN) [Online Database] (2018) USDA, ARS, National Genetic Resources Program, National Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland.
Webref 1 - Texas Native Shrubs (2002) Texas A&M University Agriculture Program and Leslie Finical, Dallas Arboretum

Research Literature

Reslit 2886 - Legumes of the United States. IV. Mimosa (1971) Duane Isely

This information was provided by the Florida WIldflower Foundation.
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Additional resources

USDA: Find Mimosa asperata in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Mimosa asperata in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Mimosa asperata