Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

SILK-TREE ALBIZIA

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Albizia julibrissin Durazz.

Riley County, Kansas

Height: Trees to 20 feet

Family: Fabaceae - Pea Family

Flowering Period: June, July, August

Trunks:

Ascending to erect; branches unarmed; bark light gray, smooth; wood white, soft.

Twigs:

Reddish brown to greenish brown, flexible, smooth with prominent tan lenticels, glabrous; leaf scars V-shaped; pith tan or brown; buds brown, ovoid, .03 to .05 inch, apex obtuse, scales glabrous.

Leaves:

Deciduous, alternate, even-2-pinnately compound, 8 to 12.8 inches; petiole 1.2 to 3 inches, glabrate or puberulent; gland proximal, elliptic to ovate; pinnae 4-12 pairs, 2.2 to 4 inches, with gland between 1 or 2 distal pairs; pinnules (13-)17-22(-36) pairs, blade oblong, .28 to .6 inch, base asymmetric, truncate, margins entire, apex acute, short-mucronate, surfaces glabrous or sparsely pubescent.

Flowers:

Inflorescences heads, 18-25-flowered, terminal or axillary; peduncles 1.2 to 3.6 inches, densely strigulose; pedicels absent. Flowers bisexual, radially symmetric; sepals 5-6, connate, calyx tubular, .1 to .16 inch, lobes triangular, glabrescent; petals 4-5, connate; corolla white to pink, funnelform, .4 to .5 inch, lobes oblong to triangular, .1 to .12 inch, minutely strigose distally; stamens 28-32, connate basally, exserted; filaments white proximally, pink distally, .7 to 1.4 inch; pistil 1, ovary superior, 1-locular; style 1 to 1.2 inch, glabrous.

Fruit:

August-October; legumes, straight, not constricted between seeds, initially green, eventually light brown, 4 to 8 inches long, .6 to 1 inch wide; seeds 4-12, brown to olive-brown, compressed-ellipsoid, .24 to .4 inch long, .14 to .18 inch wide, smooth.

Habitat:

Roadsides, disturbed woodlands, thickets, reclaimed land, stream banks.

Distribution:

East 1/3 of Kansas

Origin:

Naturalized

Comments:

Albizia julibrissin is native to southwest Asia.

Silk-tree albizia flowers