Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

JAMES' RUSHPEA

File Size: 62 KB

Pomaria jamesii (T. & G. ) Walp.

[=Caesalpinia jamesii (T. & G. ) Fisch.]

Comanche County, Kansas (photo by Phyllis Scherich)

Perennial

Height: 4-16 inches

Family: Fabaceae - Bean Family

Flowering Period: May, June, July, August

Stems:

Ascending to erect, usually branched above, finely pilose with curly or antrorse hairs, with orange glands that dry black.

Leaves:

Alternate; stipules persistent, narrowly lanceolate to narrowly triangular, .12 to .2 inch; petiole .4 to 1.2 inch; blade odd-twice-pinnately compound, pinnae 5-7; leaflets 5-10 pairs per pinna, ovate or oblong, .12 to .28 inch long, .06 to .14 inch wide, base acute, margins entire, apex rounded to obtuse or acute, surfaces finely pilose with antrorse hairs or glabrous adaxially, with orange glands abaxially, these drying black.

Inflorescences:

Racemes, terminal and axillary, 3-15-flowered, 2 to 4 inches. Peduncles .4 to 2 inches.

Flowers:

Bilaterally symmetric; pedicels .08 to .2 inch; sepals 5, united basally, lobes lanceolate, .28 to .35 inch, lower lobe larger than others and cupping stamens; petals 5, yellow, usually with red spots at base, unequal in size and shape, .16 to .3 inch long, .08 to .3 inch wide; stamens 10, fertile, unequal in length; filaments yellow or red, pubescent.

Fruits:

Legumes, slightly curved, .7 to 1.2 inch long, .28 to .4 inch wide, flattened in cross section, sparsely to densely covered with branched hairs, with orange glands that dry black; stipe absent; seeds 1-3, olive-green or brown, obovate, ca. .25 inch, flattened, smooth.

Habitat:

Gravelly to sandy shortgrass prairies, sand dunes, and sandy flood plains.

Distribution:

West half of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Named for Domini Pomar, physician of Phillip III, and Edwin James, botanist and geologist with Stephen Long's expedition of 1819-1820.

James' rushpea