Sophora tomentosa L.

• Title

  Sophora tomentosa L.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Sophora tomentosa L.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Sophora tomentosa Coast Sophora Family Fabaceae Pea Family Sophora tomentosa Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 378. 1753. The densely white-silky young leaves and twigs of this shrub readily distinguish it from all other related ones in the Porto Rico Flora. The function of such silky coverings in plants is, perhaps, to retard the transpiration of water through the stomata, and thus be useful in the physiological process; they may also serve to protect the tissues from predatory insects. It is wholly coastal in natural habitat, usually growing on sand-dunes or maritime rocks, within the reach of ocean spray, sometimes forming thickets, and is only occasional on the shores of Porto Rico; its geographic distribution extends throughout the West Indies, to Florida and Bermuda, to the coasts of tropical continental America, and to those of the Old World tropics. We have found no Spanish name recorded. Sophora (Arabic for yellow) is a genus established by Linnaeus, and includes about 25 species of herbs, shrubs, and trees, natives of warm and tropical regions; only the one here illustrated exists in Porto Rico. They have compound leaves with several pairs of leaflets and a terminal one. Their flowers are borne in clusters at the ends of branches; the mostly oblong or bell-shaped calyx is 5-toothed; the standard petal is broad and rounded, the wing-petals and the keel oblong; there are 10, separate stamens, a short-stalked ovary and the style is incurved. The pods are elongated, leathery, or fleshy, not flattened, characteristically constricted between the seeds, and mostly fall away without splitting. Sophora tomentosa is a shrub from 1 to 3 meters high. Its leaves are from 10 to 20 centimeters long, and have from 11 to 17, oblong or oval leaflets which are from 1.5 to 5 centimeters long, somewhat fleshy, rounded or blunt, their silky coating disappearing as they become old and their margins inrolling. The often numerous, stalked, yellow flowers form clusters from 10 to 40 centimeters long; the oblong calyx is from 5 to 8 millimeters long, its margin wavy, or indistinctly lobed; the standard is about 15 millimeters long, the keel somewhat longer. The pods are long-stalked, deeply constricted between the seeds, about 10 centimeters long, or shorter.