Albizzia lebbeck (L.) Benth.

• Title

  Albizzia lebbeck (L.) Benth.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Albizia lebbeck (L.) Benth.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Albizzia Lebbeck Amor platanico Women's Tongues Family Mimosaceae Mimosa Family Mimosa Lebbeck Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 516. 1753. Acacia Lebeck Willdenow, Species Plantarum 4: 1066. 1806. Albizzia Lebbeck Bentham, in Hooker's Journal of Botany 3: 87. 1844, Conspicuous, when in fruit, by numerous, long, drooping, flat, yellow pods which rattle in the wind, whence the popular English name , and beautiful, when in bloom, by round tufts of small, yellowish-white flowers, this tree of the Old World tropics is abundantly naturalized in Porto Rico, as also nearly throughout the other West Indies, commonly planted for shade and ornament, and freely spontaneous from seed. Another Spanish name is Acacia amarilla and Thibet Tree is sometimes used for it in English. The tree is of rapid growth, with hard, brown, strong and durable wood. Albizzia (commemorates the Italian naturalist Albizzi ) is an Old World genus of some 50 species of unarmed trees and shrubs, with twice compound leaves, and small, clustered flowers. The calyx is 5-toothed, the 5 petals partly united into a tube, forming a funnel-form corolla; the numerous stamens have long filaments, partly united, and small anthers; the ovary contains many ovules. The pod is flat, thin, dry, and falls away without opening, or splits tardily into 2 valves; the seeds are nearly orbicular, or oblong. Albizzia Lebbeck (first known from Upper Egypt) may become about 15 meters high, but often blooms when lower than 5 meters; its twigs and leaves are smooth, or sparingly hairy. The large leaves have stalks from 2 to 10 centimeters long, bearing an oblong, stalkless gland; they have from 2 to 4 primary divisions, each with from 4 to 9 pairs of obliquely -oblong, or obovate, thin, blunt, netted-veined leaflets from 2 to 4 centimeters long. The flower-clusters are borne on stalks from 3 to 10 centimeters long, the many individual flowers are on hairy stalks 2 to 5 millimeters long; the narrowly bell-shaped calyx is hairy and about 4 millimeters long, the corolla about 6 millimeters, the stamens about 3 centimeters long. The straight, smooth, shining pods are from 15 to 30 centimeters long, from 2 to 5 centimeters wide, and narrowed at both ends.