Plant Database

From the Image Gallery

Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Shrub
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Up to 0.4-1 (1.5) m tall." (bibref: 1812).
Leaf: "Leaves small, distant, the leaflets 3-6 pairs, obovate to suborbicular, 1-3 mm long; otherwise as in key." (bibref: 1812).
Flower: "Peduncles leaf-opposed and terminal to firm tapering branchlets; racemes usually dense but not at all conelike, ovoid to globose or rarely oblong-cylindroid, without petals 10-14 mm diameter, the pilosulous axis finally 3-30 mm long; bracts deciduous, lanceolate or lance-attenuate, pilosulous dorsally, tipped with a subcapitate gland; pedicels 0.2-0.7 (0.8) mm long, charged near base and apex with pairs of small orange glands; calyx 3.9-5.3 (8.3) mm long, either pilosulous equably from base upward (the hairs up to 0.3-0.6, rarely 0.7 mm long), or the tube externally glabrous and lustrous, only the teeth pilosulous, the tube (measured to a lateral sinus) 1.9-2.8 (3) mm long, its ribs becoming prominent but remaining slender, the membranous intervals charged with 1 row of 2-4 (the ventral intervals with up to 6, more scattered) glands, the ventral sinus less deeply recessed than the lateral ones and the orifice therefore oblique, the teeth varying from triangular-acuminate to narrowly lance-acuminate or -caudate, the dorsal one longest, either a little shorter or longer than tube, the ventral pair broadest and shortest: petals marcescent, all opening pink-purple, the banner with a golden eye-spot, this and wings gland-tipped, the keel usually glandless; banner 4.6-6.1 (6.6) mm long, the antrorsely arched claw 2-2.5 (2.8) mm the ovate-cordate, emarginate or retuse blade 3.2-4.2 (4.6) mm long, 2.7-4.6 mm wide; wings 5.4-7 mm long, the claw 1.9-2.5 (2.8) mm, the narrowly oblong, obtuse or truncate-emarginate blade 4-5 (5.4) mm long, 1.5-2.1 mm wide; keel 5.7-8 mm long, the claws (1.9) 2.2-3 mm, the broadly obovate blades (3.7) 4-5.3 mm long, 2.4-3.7 mm wide; androecium 5.2-6.8 mm long, the connective gland-tipped, the anthers (0.55) 0.6-0.8 (1) mm long; ovules 2, collateral." (bibref: 1812).
Fruit: "Pod about 2.5 mm long, obliquely clavate-obovoid, the style-base lateral, the valves glabrous and hyaline at base, distally rugulose, thinly pilosulous, gross-glandular; seed (seldom seen) 2-2.2 mm long. Fruits ripe from July onward." (bibref: 1812).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: Pink , Yellow , Purple
Bloom Time: May , Jun , Jul , Aug , Sep
Bloom Notes: "Petals marcescent, all opening pink-purple, the banner with a golden eye-spot." (bibref: 1812).

Distribution

USA: CA , NV , UT
Native Distribution: "Forming colonies but seldom crowded into thickets, widespread through the basins of western Nevada and along eastern foothills of Sierra Nevada in adjoining California from Smoke Creek Desert and the Humboldt and Carson sinks southward to Owens Valley, and somewhat disjunctly to central Mohave Desert in San Bernardino County, in Nevada southward to southern Nye County and thence eastward, rarely, to the Beaver Dam Mountains in southwestern Washington County, Utah." (bibref: 1812).
Native Habitat: "Sandy and gravelly, often alkaline flats and low hills, commonly associated with chenopods, sometimes on dunes, 880-2250 m (2930-7500 ft)." (bibref: 1812).

Additional resources

USDA: Find Psorothamnus polydenius var. polydenius in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Psorothamnus polydenius var. polydenius in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Psorothamnus polydenius var. polydenius