Parkinsonia africana
Click on each image to see a larger version and details of the record
Image 1
Seed pods
13 Dec 2008
Image 2
Flower
17 Dec 2006
Image 3
Seed pods
17 Dec 2006
Image 4
Flowers
17 Dec 2006
Image 5
Young plant showing
small leaves and spines
20 Dec 2006
Image 6
Habit
01 May 2006
| Family: | Fabaceae |
| Full name: | Parkinsonia africana Sond. |
| ID status: | Fairly certain |
| Afrikaans common name(s): | (Wilde) Groenhaarboom, Lemoenhout, Lemoendoring, Lemoendoringboom, Thaboom, Waterboom, Wildelemoen, Peulboom |
| English common name(s): | (Wild) Green-hair tree |
| Synonym(s): | - |
| Status: | Native |
| Description: | Virgately branched shrub or tree up to 6 m high, armed with stout spines which are modified lateral shoots and which are often branched and bear leaves and inflorescences; young branchlets pale greenish-yellow or yellowish-brown, becoming greyish- brown to grey or brown with age, subglabrous or occasionally finely pubescent when young. Leaves reduced to green pinnae-rhachillae (2)4-15 cm long, terete or subterete, slightly grooved on the upper surface, with up to 15 nodes but no leaflets or occasionally with minute inconspicuous scale-like linear or oblanceolate opposite leaflets up to 1.5 x 0.5. mm. Stipules inconspicuous, not spine-scent. Racemes lax, up to 18 cm long; bracts up to 1.5 mm long, ovate, soon deciduous. Flowers yellow, on pedicels 3-10 mm long (excluding the elongate lower part of the hypanthium). Receptacle consisting of a disc up to 3 mm in diameter and a lower elongate part up to 10 mm long which simulates the pedicel; the disc usually remaining in fruit to form a small collar. Sepals 5-8 mm long, narrowly-ovate to oblong, narrowly imbricate, becoming reflexed in flower, subglabrous or with short scattered hairs. Petals 7-12 mm long, the upper one larger than the others, with a distinct claw and a reniform lamina; the other petals ovate-lanceolate. Stamens up to 12 mm long, filaments densely pubescent below; anthers 1-1.7 mm long. Ovary glabrous or with few scattered hairs, especially on the margins. Pods brown, (3.5)5-13 cm long, 0.6-0.95 cm wide, linear, straight or curved and sometimes falcate, attenuate at both ends, flattened, often somewhat constricted between the seeds, glabrous, longitudinally venose, indehiscent or perhaps very tardily dehiscent. Seeds 7-9.5 X 5-6 x 2-3 mm, oblong, elongated longitudinally in the pods, mottled, light brown with dark brown markings, smooth. (from JSTOR website / Flora of Southern Africa) flexuous, divaricately branched, glabrous and glaucous, spiniferous; leaves 3 or more from the axils of horizontal spines; common petiole semiterete, wingless, channelled, taper-pointed; leaflets opposite, very minute, oblong, acute; racemes axillary and terminal, laxly 6–10-flowered; pedicels bracteate at base; calyx puberulous; legumes linear-lanceolate, narrowed at base and apex, finely striate, 8-seeded, seeds oblong, obtuse, shining. A tall bush, called 'Wilde Limoenhout' by the colonists. Branches pale yellowish, spreading subhorizontally, flexuous, tapering, the younger minutely downy. Leaves juncoid, the petiole 4–5 inches long; leaflets in 8–10 distant pairs, 0.5–1 line long, very narrow. Racemes 2–3 inches long, spreading; the peduncle rigid; pedicels 4–6 lines long. Calyx coloured, with a short downy tube and oblong, deciduous limb. Filaments hairy at base. Petals yellow. Legumes 4–5 inches long, 4–5 lines wide, contracted and compressed between the seeds. (from JSTOR website / Flora Capensis) Usually a thin-stemmed, scraggly shrub. BARK smooth, pale brown to yellow-green. THORNS straight, yellow-green to pale brown. LEAVES compound; leaflets pale yellow-green, tiny or absent; rachis appearing as a long, green thread. FLOWERS yellow, up to 15 mm in diameter. FRUIT a slender pod, straight to slightly sickle-shaped, somewhat constricted between seeds and flattened; usually not splitting open. Flowers and fruit are conspicuous. (from Tree Atlas of Namibia) |
| Link(s) |
African Plant Database
JSTOR Plant Science Kew Herbarium Catalogue BGBM Berlin-Dahlem - Virtual Herbarium Züricher Herbarien iSpot Flora of Zimbabwe Fleurs de notre Terre - Galerie Namibie Tree Atlas of Namibia |
| Content last updated: | 02 Sep 2012 |
