''Senegalia greggii'', formerly known as ''Acacia greggii'', is a species of tree in the genus ''

Senegalia ''Senegalia'' (from Senegal and ''Acacia senegal'' (L.) Willd.) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. It belongs to the Mimosoid clade. Until 2005, its species were considered members of ''Acacia.'' The genus was considered poly ...

'' native to the southwestern United States and northern

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, from the extreme south of

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

south through southern

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

, southeast

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...

and western

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

, Sinaloa and Nuevo León in Mexico. The population in Utah at 37°10' N is the northernmost naturally occurring ''Senegalia'' species anywhere in the world. Common names include acacia bush, catclaw acacia, catclaw mesquite, Gregg's catclaw, paradise flower, wait-a-minute bush, and wait-a-bit tree; these names mostly come from the fact that the tree has numerous hooked prickles with the shape and size of a

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

's claw which tend to hook onto passers-by; the hooked person must stop ("wait a minute") to remove the prickles carefully to avoid injury or shredded clothing. (The common name "cat's claw" is also used to refer to several other plant species, including ''

Uncaria tomentosa ''Uncaria tomentosa'' is a woody vine found in the tropical jungles of South and Central America. It is known as cat's claw or uña de gato in Spanish because of its claw-shaped thorns. The plant root bark is used in herbalism for a variety of ...

'', a woody vine found in the tropical jungles of South and Central America.) The specific epithet ''greggii'' refers to

Josiah Gregg Josiah Gregg (19 July 1806 – 25 February 1850) was an American merchant, explorer, naturalist, and author of '' Commerce of the Prairies'', about the American Southwest and parts of northern Mexico. He collected many previously undescribed pla ...

, a 19th-century author, explorer, and amateur naturalist of the

American Southwest The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado ...

and northern Mexico.

Description

It is a large shrub or small

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

growing to tall with a trunk up to diameter. The grey-green leaves are

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, ...

, and bipinnate, divided into 1-3 pairs of pinnae, each pinna long with 10-18 leaflets that are . Pinnae are most frequently in two pairs, with the proximal pair perpendicular to the petiolule and the distal pair forming a V at the tip. The blooms are produced in dense cylindrical spikes of numerous flowers, each individual flower with five cream colored petals and numerous creamy yellow stamens. The

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

is a flat, twisted legume (pod) long, containing generally 3 to 5 hard, flattened, medium brown

seed A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiospe ...

s. The seed pod is constricted between seeds (a

loment A loment (or lomentum) is a type of dehiscent legume fruit that breaks apart at constrictions occurring between segments, so that each segment contains one seed. It is a type of schizocarp. Tick trefoil (''Desmodium'') and sweet vetch (''Hedysarum ...

), and

seed dispersal In Spermatophyte plants, seed dispersal is the movement, spread or transport of seeds away from the parent plant. Plants have limited mobility and rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their seeds, including both abiotic vectors ...

occurs both through dehiscence and breaks at these constrictions.

Ecology

''Senegalia greggii'' is most common in arroyos where its roots have access to deep water. Its seeds require physical

scarification Scarification involves scratching, etching, burning/branding, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification or body art. The body modification can take roughly 6–12 months to heal. In the ...

in order to germinate. This effectively prevents germination unless a flash flood disturbs the area and deposits enough water to increase the likelihood that seedlings will be able to establish deep enough roots to survive the dry season. Catclaw is fully

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

and will usually lack leaves for most of the year. ''S. greggii'' has

extrafloral nectaries Nectar is a sugar-rich liquid produced by plants in glands called nectaries or nectarines, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollination, pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to anim ...

, a trait shared with other senegalias. A tentative connection has been made between these glands and

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...

s that would suggest a mutualistic relationship (as found in other ''Senegalia'' species).

Ant Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of ...

s are known to use the glands as a source of food and water, and may provide some defense for the plant against

herbivorous A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpar ...

insects. Like other arroyo trees in family Fabaceae, ''S. greggii'' is frequently afflicted with Desert Mistletoe, ''

Phoradendron ''Phoradendron'' is a genus of mistletoe, native to warm temperate and tropical regions of the Americas. The center of diversity is the Amazon rainforest.Coder, K. DAmerican mistletoe (''Phoradendron serotinum'' var. ''serotinum'') infectio ...

californicum''. Unlike other legumes, ''S. greggii'' is not known to form root nodule associations with

nitrogen-fixing Nitrogen fixation is a chemical process by which molecular nitrogen (), with a strong triple covalent bond, in the air is converted into ammonia () or related nitrogenous compounds, typically in soil or aquatic systems but also in industry. Atm ...

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometr ...

. It is argued that this species may be an example of an evolutionary anachronism, in which the range and renewal of the species is limited due to the

extinction Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

of the mammalian megafauna responsible for

. Within this model, the scarification required to germinate the seeds would have occurred during the chewing and

digestion Digestion is the breakdown of large insoluble food molecules into small water-soluble food molecules so that they can be absorbed into the watery blood plasma. In certain organisms, these smaller substances are absorbed through the small intest ...

of the fruit by a large mammal, who later passes the seed intact some distance from the original tree. Gambel quail eat the seeds. Antelope browse the foliage, but more delicate species may do so cautiously on account of the thorns.

Ethnobotany

''Senegalia greggii'', even though it is used as

forage Forage is a plant material (mainly plant leaves and stems) eaten by grazing livestock. Historically, the term ''forage'' has meant only plants eaten by the animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, but it is also used ...

for livestock, contains a potentially poisonous

cyanogenic glycoside In chemistry, a glycoside is a molecule in which a sugar is bound to another functional group via a glycosidic bond. Glycosides play numerous important roles in living organisms. Many plants store chemicals in the form of inactive glycosides. ...

called

prunasin (''R'')-prunasin is a cyanogenic glycoside related to amygdalin. Chemically, it is the glucoside of (''R'')- mandelonitrile. Natural occurrences Prunasin is found in species in the genus ''Prunus'' such as '' Prunus japonica'' or '' P. maximow ...

.Plants Causing Sudden Death by A. P. Knight and R. G. Walter
/ref> Mature seeds are to be avoided, as the native people did. The young, unripe beans of ''S. greggii'' were gathered and eaten by desert

tribes The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...

of North America, including the Chemehuevi of the Southern Paiute, the

Pima Pima or PIMA may refer to: People * Pima people, the Akimel O'odham, Indigenous peoples in Arizona (U.S.) and Sonora (Mexico) Places * Pima, Arizona, a town in Graham County * Pima County, Arizona * Pima Canyon, in the Santa Catalina Mountains ...

, and the

Cahuilla The Cahuilla , also known as ʔívil̃uqaletem or Ivilyuqaletem, are a Native American people of the various tribes of the Cahuilla Nation, living in the inland areas of southern California.Havasupai The Havasupai people (Havasupai: ''Havsuw' Baaja'') are an American Indian tribe who have lived in the Grand Canyon for at least the past 800 years. ''Havasu'' means "blue-green water" and ''pai'' "people". Located primarily in an area know ...

ground it to make flour for bread. The

Seri Seri or SERI may refer to: People *Jean Michaël Seri, an Ivorian professional footballer Places *Seri Yek-e Zarruk, Iran *Seri, Bheri, Nepal *Seri, Karnali, Nepal *Seri, Mahakali, Nepal *Seri, Raebareli, a village in Uttar Pradesh, India Oth ...

ground the beans to meal then mixed it with water and sea lion oil for porridge. The

Diegueno The Kumeyaay, also known as Tipai-Ipai or by their historical Spanish name Diegueño, is a tribe of Indigenous peoples of the Americas who live at the northern border of Baja California in Mexico and the southern border of California in the Unit ...

used ''S. greggii'' as food for domesticated animals. The Pimas and Tohono O'odham ate the seeds as

pinole Pinole, also called pinol or pinolillo, is roasted ground maize, which is then mixed with a combination of cocoa, agave, cinnamon, chia seeds, vanilla, or other spices. The resulting powder is then used as a nutrient-dense ingredient to make d ...

. The Cahuilla and Pima used the fibers for sturdy construction material and firewood. The Havasupai split the twigs and used them for basketry, but also used the twigs as a broom to brush off

metate A metate (or mealing stone) is a type or variety of quern, a ground stone tool used for processing grain and seeds. In traditional Mesoamerican cultures, metates are typically used by women who would grind nixtamalized maize and other organic ...

s. The O'odham used the broken twigs for baskets, and were curved to make intricate weaves in the baskets. The Pima used the dried bushes to pile them to make a brush fence. The branches were used to make cradle frames as well. The Tohono O'odham fitted the branches around deer hunters' heads to make a disguise, and the buds and blossoms were dried to make perfume sachets by the women. The sticks were also used to dislodge

saguaro The saguaro (, ) (''Carnegiea gigantea'') is a tree-like cactus species in the monotypic genus ''Carnegiea'' that can grow to be over tall. It is native to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, the Mexican state of Sonora, and the Whipple Mountai ...

fruits from the

cactus A cactus (, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Gree ...

body, and rods were curved to flesh animal skins. The Akimel O'odham made bows out of the wood.

Some chemical compounds found in ''Senegalia greggii''

* Beta-methyl-phenethylamineChemistry of Acacias from South Texas
*

Catechin Catechin is a flavan-3-ol, a type of secondary metabolite providing antioxidant roles in plants. It belongs to the subgroup of polyphenols called flavonoids. The name of the catechin chemical family derives from ''catechu'', which is the tanni ...

Fisetin Fisetin (7,3′,4′- flavon-3-ol) is a plant flavonol from the flavonoid group of polyphenols. It can be found in many plants, where it serves as a yellow/ ochre colouring agent. It is also found in many fruits and vegetables, such as strawberrie ...

Hordenine Hordenine is an alkaloid of the phenethylamine class that occurs naturally in a variety of plants, taking its name from one of the most common, barley (''Hordeum'' species). Chemically, hordenine is the ''N''-methyl derivative of ''N''-methyltyra ...

* Phenethylamine *

Quercetin Quercetin is a plant flavonol from the flavonoid group of polyphenols. It is found in many fruits, vegetables, leaves, seeds, and grains; capers, red onions, and kale are common foods containing appreciable amounts of it. It has a bitter flavor ...

Tyramine Tyramine ( ) (also spelled tyramin), also known under several other names, is a naturally occurring trace amine derived from the amino acid tyrosine. Tyramine acts as a catecholamine releasing agent. Notably, it is unable to cross the blood ...

Gallery

Image:Acacia greggii branch.jpg, Image:Acacia greggii seeds.jpg, Image:Acacia greggii2.jpg, Image:Acacia-greggii-bark.jpg,

References

General references

* Barlow, C. (2000). ''The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsensical fruit, missing partners and other ecological anachronisms.'' Basic Books:NY.
Jepson Manual Treatment: ''Senegalia greggii'' (as ''Acacia greggii'')

* Lawor, Elizabeth Jane (1995). ''Archaeological Site-formation Processes Affecting Plant Remains in the Mojave Desert.''. University of California, Riverside.
Interactive Distribution Map of ''Senegalia greggii'' (as ''Acacia greggii'')

External links

{{Authority control greggii North American desert flora Flora of the Chihuahuan Desert Flora of the Sonoran Deserts Flora of the California desert regions Flora of the Rio Grande valleys Trees of the Southwestern United States Trees of Baja California Trees of Chihuahua (state) Trees of Coahuila Trees of the South-Central United States Trees of Nuevo León Trees of Sinaloa Trees of Sonora Trees of Tamaulipas Natural history of the Colorado Desert Natural history of the Lower Colorado River Valley Natural history of the Mojave Desert Flora of Texas Forages Plants used in Native American cuisine