Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

HOG PEANUT

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Amphicarpaea bracteata (L. ) Fernald

Konza Prairie, Riley County, Kansas

Annual

Height: Twining or sprawling

Family: Fabaceae - Bean Family

Flowering Period: August, September

Also Called:

American hog peanut, southern hog peanut.

Stems:

8 to 80 inches long, climbing on other plants or sprawling, glabrous or covered with short hairs.

Leaves:

Alternate, pinnately trifoliolate, on stalks 1 to 4 inches long; leaflets broadly lanceolate to ovate or rhombic-ovate, 1 to 4 inches long, .75 to 2.8 inches wide, thin, nearly glabrous or appressed-hairy; tip pointed; stipules up to 1/3 inch long; stalk of terminal leaflet .2 to 1.6 inches long; stalk of lateral leaflets less than 1/10 inch long.

Inflorescences:

Two kinds of flowers; racemes, 3/5 to 5 inches long, 1-17-flowered, on stalks .5 to 2.5 inches long in leaf axils, bloom from bottom upward; also inconspicuous, self-pollinating flowers near stem base or underground.

Flowers:

About 1/2 inch long, on stalks less than 1/5 inch long, subtended by 2 bracts; bracts widest above middle; tips blunt or truncate; calyx tube about 1/5 inch long, 4-lobed; lobes lanceolate or triangular; corolla papilionaceous, purple, lilac, or whitish; blades of keel petals longer than claws; stamens 10, filaments united in 2 groups.

Fruits:

Legumes from upper flowers, .6 to 2.6 inches long, flattened, often sickle-shaped; seeds kidney-shaped, brown; pods from subterranean flowers, round, 1/4 to 1/2 inch in diameter, fleshy, 1-seeded.

Habitat:

Woodlands, thickets, brushy ravines, and roadside banks; dry or moist soils.

Distribution:

Principally the east 1/2 of Kansas.

Uses:

The underground "peanuts" are edible when cooked. Native Americans would use them as a food source, sometimes retrieving them from field mice nests. Native Americans also used parts of the plant in treatments of diarrhea, snakebites, and swellings.

Comments:

The size of the leaflets and amount of pubescence can be quite variable.

Hog peanut inflorescence