Chorizema ilicifolium Labill.

  • Authority

    Isely, Duane. 1981. Leguminosae of the United States. III. Subfamily Papilionoideae: tribes Sophoreae, Podalyrieae, Loteae. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 25 (3): 1-264.

  • Family

    Fabaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Chorizema ilicifolium Labill.

  • Description

    Species Description - Usually glabrate, sprawling or erect, basally branched, shrub or herb (flowering first year) .5-2 m. Leaves holly-like, sessile or subsessile, ovate, lanceolate, or narrowly oblong, basally rounded or subcordate, 2-8 cm, 1.5-2.5 r, sinuate-margined or incised, the undulations or lobes terminating in prickles 1-10 mm; blades coriaceous, shiny, reticulate. Stipules inevident. Racemes terminal or some axillary or compound, often elongate, to 15 cm, flexuous, with 5-many, loosely disposed, ascending flowers 8-12 mm; axis thinly strigulose; bracts lanceolate, 2-3 mm, usually persistent. Pedicels 2-5 mm, somewhat elongating in fruit. Calyx 5-7 mm, glabrate, strigulose or hirsute; lobes lanceolate, ± tube. Corolla orange-red and purple or coral; standard reflexed 90° and somewhat replicate, oblate, emarginate or not; wings and keel petals humped or spurred; wings straight, oblong-obovate, asymmetrically widening distally; keel petals asymmetrically oval, pouchlike, subporrect. Stamens unequal. Ovary substipitate, ellipsoid or short-cylindric, 2.5-4 mm, ± or > than style, villous or strigulose; ovules 20-25; style incurved 120°-180°. Legume erect or irregularly spreading, stipitate 3-4 mm, obovoid or obliquely ellipsoid, turgid, short-beaked, 10-15 cm x 7-8 mm, short-beaked, persistent, ultimately deciduous with pedicel; valves thinly coriaceous, finely reticulate-rugulose, puberulent, ultimately opening at apex. Seeds several, shiny.

  • Discussion

    C. cordata Lindl. (1838). C. varia Benth. (1839). C. elegans Hort. C. grandiflora Hort. Chorizema ilicifolia, unmistakable because of its prickly, holly-like, simple leaves and small, gaudy, papilionaceous flowers, is listed for California under several names in horticultural references (Bailey, 1949; Enari, 1962; Mathias and McClintock, 1963). Specimens seen include three species of Bentham (1864) that, in idealized concept are as follows: 1. Leaves pubescent beneath, barely prickle-margined. C. varia. 1. Leaves glabrate beneath or pubescent along midrib, sinuate- to strongly prickle-margined. 2. Leaves holly-like, conspicuously prickle-margined; racemes often strongly exserted; said to be a wiry, sprawling subshrub. C. ilicifolia. 2. Leaves sinuate-margined (-prickly); racemes little exserted, said to be an ascending shrub; with larger flowers. C. cordata. These species cannot be clearly distinguished in the scant United States herbarium material. Plants with subentire leaves are usually referred to Chorizema cordata, but the contrasting leaf forms are seemingly confluent. The flowers are variable in size and in pubescence of the calyx and ovary. Plants with pubescent leaves may or may not be prickly-margined. Thus, I can only regard these species, at least of horticulture, as unsatisfactory convenience groupings of one taxon. McClintock (as to annotation) has taken the same position and Turrill (1954-1955) also expressed doubt that C. cordatum and C. varium are distinct species. Perhaps in Australia, morphological variance correlates with distribution or ecological specificity, but this is not confirmed by such Australian material I have studied. Since the above was written, Drs. M. Tindale and Johnson (Royal Botanic Gardens, New South Wales) have sent me an extract from a letter from C. A. Gardner, written in 1954. He believed Chorizema ilicifolia and C. cordata could be distinguished, though not by characters used by Bentham. A distillation of Gardner’s analysis, in key form, is: 1. Calyx teeth ± tube; legume stipe ± or > calyx-tube; leaves relatively short and broad. C. cordata. 1. Calyx teeth > tube; legume stipe < calyx tube; leaves commonly long and narrow, but variable in shape and degree of dentation. C. ilicifolia. I do not now have specimens with which to review Gardner’s distinctions.

  • Distribution

    Urban California, occasionally under glass elsewhere. Native of Australia. Cult ornamental. All year. Holly flame pea.

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