Texas Gardening: Texas Native Plant Pictures by color ( Other & Bicolor ), 1 by htop

htop wrote:
Scarlet Pea, Texas Indigo, Butterfly Shoestring-Pea (Indigofera miniata), Papilionaceae Family, Texas native, deciduous, blooms from April through September

It is a prostrate (usually between.3 to 1.0 feet tall) legume with trailing, spreading stems that arise from from a woody base and a large tuberous root. The stems run mostly along the ground and are between 4 and 30 inches long. It usually forms a mat of vegetation and sometimes forms colonies. It is commonly found on prairies, woodlands and along creeks. In Texas, it grows in the Pineywoods, Gulf Prairies and Marshes, Blackland Prairie, Post Oak Savannah, South Texas Plains, Edwards Plateau and the Rolling Plains regions.

It is an excellent plant to use for erosion control. It is eaten by wildlife (is a good deer browse) and livestock including cattle, sheep, goats and horses. As a small mammal cover, it is also valuable. It is a larval host for butterflies including the Funereal Duskywing (Erynnis funeralis), False Duskywing (Gesta invisa), Ceraunus Blue, Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus), Cassius Blue (Leptotes cassius) and Reakirt's Blue (Echinargus isola).

For more information, see its PlantFiles entry:
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/66699/index.html

View from above ... Blooms are 3/4 of an inch long. Note the small seedpods.

This message was edited Jul 26, 2005 5:14 PM