''Hoffmannseggia microphylla'' (
syn.
The Botanical and Zoological Codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently.
* In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linnae ...
''Caesalpinia virgata'') is a species of flowering plant in the
legume family known by the common name wand holdback. It is native to the southwestern United States and
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 ...
, where it grows in sandy and gravelly soils in the deserts.
This is a twiggy
shrub
A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...
producing many slender, wandlike, mostly naked stems up to two meters tall. The stems are hairy and green and have few leaves for most of the year. Before the leaves
fall, they appear as twigs lined with pairs of small oval-shaped leaflets.
The shrub flowers in scattered raceme
inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...
s of red-streaked yellow flowers which age to full red. The fruit is a sickle-shaped
dehiscent
Dehiscence is the splitting of a mature plant structure along a built-in line of weakness to release its contents. This is common among fruits, anthers and sporangia. Sometimes this involves the complete detachment of a part; structures that op ...
legume pod up to 2.5 centimeters long. It is bumpy with glands and slightly hairy.
External links
Jepson Manual TreatmentUSDA Plants ProfilePhoto gallery
Caesalpinieae
Flora of the Sonoran Deserts
Flora of the California desert regions
Flora of Baja California
Flora of Arizona
Natural history of the Colorado Desert
{{Caesalpinioideae-stub