Parkinsonia
Encyclopedia
Parkinsonia also Cercidium s, is a genus of flowering plant
s in the pea
family, Fabaceae
. It contains about 12 species that are native to semi-desert
regions of Africa
and the Americas
. The name of the genus honors English
apothecary
and botanist John Parkinson
(1567–1650).
They are large shrub
s or small tree
s growing to 5–12 m (16.4–39.4 ft) tall, dry season
deciduous
, with sparse, open, thorny
crowns and green bark. The leaves
are pinnate
, sometimes bipinnate, with numerous small leaflet
s; they are only borne for a relatively short time after rains, with much of the photosynthesis
carried out by the green twigs and branches. The flower
s are symmetrical or nearly so, with five yellow or white petal
s. The fruit
is a pod containing several seed
s. Most American species are known by the common name of palo verde or paloverde, from the Spanish
words meaning "green pole" or "green stick". This name is derived from its characteristic green trunk
.
Flowering plant
The flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...
s in the pea
Pea
A pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the pod fruit Pisum sativum. Each pod contains several peas. Peapods are botanically a fruit, since they contain seeds developed from the ovary of a flower. However, peas are considered to be a vegetable in cooking...
family, Fabaceae
Fabaceae
The Fabaceae or Leguminosae, commonly known as the legume, pea, or bean family, is a large and economically important family of flowering plants. The group is the third largest land plant family, behind only the Orchidaceae and Asteraceae, with 730 genera and over 19,400 species...
. It contains about 12 species that are native to semi-desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
regions of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
and the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
. The name of the genus honors English
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
apothecary
Apothecary
Apothecary is a historical name for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses materia medica to physicians, surgeons and patients — a role now served by a pharmacist and some caregivers....
and botanist John Parkinson
John Parkinson (botanist)
John Parkinson was the last of the great English herbalists and one of the first of the great English botanists. He was apothecary to James I and a founding member of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in December 1617, and was later Royal Botanist to Charles I...
(1567–1650).
They are large shrub
Shrub
A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...
s or small tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
s growing to 5–12 m (16.4–39.4 ft) tall, dry season
Dry season
The dry season is a term commonly used when describing the weather in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which oscillates from the northern to the southern tropics over the course of the year...
deciduous
Deciduous
Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally, and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...
, with sparse, open, thorny
Thorns, spines, and prickles
In botanical morphology, thorns, spines, and prickles are hard structures with sharp, or at least pointed, ends. In spite of this common feature, they differ in their growth and development on the plant; they are modified versions of different plant organs, stems, stipules, leaf veins, or hairs...
crowns and green bark. The leaves
Leaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....
are pinnate
Pinnate
Pinnate is a term used to describe feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis in plant or animal structures, and comes from the Latin word pinna meaning "feather", "wing", or "fin". A similar term is pectinate, which refers to a comb-like arrangement of parts...
, sometimes bipinnate, with numerous small leaflet
Leaflet
A leaflet in botany is a part of a compound leaf. A leaflet may resemble an entire leaf, but it is not borne on a stem as a leaf is, but rather on a vein of the whole leaf. Compound leaves are common in many plant families...
s; they are only borne for a relatively short time after rains, with much of the photosynthesis
Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight. Photosynthesis occurs in plants, algae, and many species of bacteria, but not in archaea. Photosynthetic organisms are called photoautotrophs, since they can...
carried out by the green twigs and branches. The flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
s are symmetrical or nearly so, with five yellow or white petal
Petal
Petals are modified leaves that surround the reproductive parts of flowers. They often are brightly colored or unusually shaped to attract pollinators. Together, all of the petals of a flower are called a corolla. Petals are usually accompanied by another set of special leaves called sepals lying...
s. The fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
is a pod containing several seed
Seed
A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...
s. Most American species are known by the common name of palo verde or paloverde, from the Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
words meaning "green pole" or "green stick". This name is derived from its characteristic green trunk
Trunk (botany)
In botany, trunk refers to the main wooden axis of a tree that supports the branches and is supported by and directly attached to the roots. The trunk is covered by the bark, which is an important diagnostic feature in tree identification, and which often differs markedly from the bottom of the...
.
Selected species
- Parkinsonia aculeataParkinsonia aculeataParkinsonia aculeata is a species of perennial flowering tree in the pea family, Fabaceae. Common names include palo verde, Mexican palo verde, Parkinsonia, Jerusalem thorn, and jelly bean tree.-Etymology:...
L. – Mexican palo verde (Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts of the United States and Mexico and southward to ArgentinaArgentinaArgentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
; Galápagos IslandsGalápagos IslandsThe Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...
) - Parkinsonia africana Sond.Otto Wilhelm SonderOtto Wilhelm Sonder was a German botanist and pharmacist who was a native of Holstein. From 1841 to 1878 he was the proprietor of a pharmacy in Hamburg. In 1846 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Königsberg.He was the author, with William Henry Harvey , of the Flora Capensis...
(BotswanaBotswanaBotswana, officially the Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens are referred to as "Batswana" . Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966...
, NamibiaNamibiaNamibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...
, South AfricaSouth AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
) - Parkinsonia anacantha BrenanJohn Patrick Micklethwait BrenanJohn Patrick Micklethwait Brenan was a British botanist. He was born June 19, 1917 in Chislehurst and died September 26, 1985 at Kew. He is buried at St. Anne's Church, Kew....
(KenyaKenyaKenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
) - Parkinsonia andicola (Griseb.) S.WatsonSereno WatsonSereno Watson was an American botanist.Graduating from Yale in 1847, he drifted through various occupations until, in California, he joined the Clarence King Expedition and eventually became its expedition botanist...
(syn. Cercidium andicola) - Parkinsonia carterae (Western MexicoMexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
south to EcuadorEcuadorEcuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
) - Parkinsonia floridaParkinsonia floridaParkinsonia florida is a species of palo verde native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico...
(Benth.George BenthamGeorge Bentham CMG FRS was an English botanist, characterized by Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century".- Formative years :...
ex A.GrayAsa Gray-References:*Asa Gray. Dictionary of American Biography. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928–1936.*Asa Gray. Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998.*Asa Gray. Plant Sciences. 4 vols. Macmillan Reference USA, 2001....
) S.Watson (syn. Cercidium floridum) – Blue Palo Verde (Southern CaliforniaSouthern CaliforniaSouthern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, Arizona, northwestern Mexico) - Parkinsonia microphyllaParkinsonia microphyllaParkinsonia microphylla is a species of palo verde native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico .- Overview :It is a bristling, upright-branching tree, mostly found on slopes, and is one of the...
Torr. (syn. Cercidium microphyllum) – Foothill Palo Verde (Southern California, Arizona, northwestern Mexico) - Parkinsonia praecox (Ruiz & Pav.Ruiz y Pavón-Ruiz et Pavón:Ruiz y Pavón Spanish form of the combination Ruiz et Pavón, as used as authority in plant species.-Joseph Pavón:Jose Antonio Pavón y Jimenez Spanish botanist, with Hipólito Ruiz López and the French specialist Dombey visited between 1779 and 1788 Chile, Peru and other South American...
) J.A.Hawkins (syn. Cercidium praecox) – Brea, Verde olivo (southern Arizona into Mexico and south to Argentina) - Parkinsonia raimondoiParkinsonia raimondoiParkinsonia raimondoi is a species of flowering plant in the pea family, Fabaceae, that is endemic to Somalia. It is threatened by habitat loss.-References:* Thulin, M. 1998. . Downloaded on 19 July 2007....
Brenan (SomaliaSomaliaSomalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
) - Parkinsonia scioana (Chiov.Emilio ChiovendaEmilio Chiovenda was an Italian botanist.He collected in Italy, Eritrea and Ethiopia, especially the he Ruwenzori Mountains, from 1893 to 1909....
) Brenan (DjiboutiDjiboutiDjibouti , officially the Republic of Djibouti , is a country in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea in the north, Ethiopia in the west and south, and Somalia in the southeast. The remainder of the border is formed by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden at the east...
, EthiopiaEthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, Somalia, Kenya) - Parkinsonia texana (A.Gray) S.Watson (syn. Cercidium texanum) – Texas palo verde (Texas, northeastern Mexico)
- Parkinsonia texana var. macra (I.M.Johnst.Ivan Murray JohnstonI. M. Johnston , was a United States botanist. He studied at Pomona College in Claremont, California and at Harvard University...
) Isely - Parkinsonia texana var. texana
- Parkinsonia texana var. macra (I.M.Johnst.