Not Obviously Peas

There are about 17,000 species in about 640 genera, in the Pea Family. Lots of them are kind of weedy - White clover, Alsike clover (T. hybridum), Yellow and White Sweet clover (Melilotus officinalis and M. alba), Bird's-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) - and easy to overlook. Others, like Goat's Rue (Tephrosia virginiana), or Spurred Butterfly Pea (Centrosema virginianum) aren't so easy to ignore. But you know, there are some other eye treats in the family; cousins which don't look like cousins.

Three such species immediately come to mind; Partridge Pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata), Leadplant (Amorpha canescens), and Sensitive Briar (Mimosa quadrivalvis). All are prairie species, and can be common in their range.

I first encountered Partridge Pea in Adams Lake Prairie, in Adams Co., Ohio. A three-foot tall plant with pinnately compound leaves consisting of up to fifteen pairs of small leaflets, it sports big yellow flowers; bright headlights growing out of leaf axils.

The five-petaled flowers are about an inch and a half wide, with ten prominent stamens drooping out of the center. Four of these stamens are yellow, the remainder are purple. The leaves are somewhat sensitive, with a tendency to fold up if touched. Some of its common names have included Sleeping-plant, Large-flowered Sensitive Pea, and Prairie Senna.

Leadplant, with pinnately compound leaves of up to fifty leaflets, silvery-haired stems, and clusters of dark blue-flowered spikes is really difficult to ignore. In northwestern Indiana it was a common roadside plant as well as in the area's prairie remnants.

The small blue flowers have only one petal, the banner, which sort of curls around the ten bright orange stamens sticking out of it. Its long stringy roots plumb the depths of the soil, digging their way down four feet or more. As a consequence, they face little competition from prairie grasses. The roots also give rise to one of its common names, Prairie Shoestring. Native Americans used the leaves in smoking mixtures, and to make tea.

Sensitive Briar may be the most noticeable of the bunch; the trailing vines have prickly stems up to four feet long, the flower heads are bright pink pom-poms, and the pinnately compound leaves fold-up like an out-of-shape boxer dropped by a punch to the midsection. I found it growing in Konza Prairie in Kansas, as well in the Pearl River Wildlife Preserve in southwestern Mississippi.

Each flower head is a dense cluster of flowers. The flowers, however, are insignificant in appearance. The disco ball of pink is due to the eight to ten pink, yellow-tipped stamens protruding from each flower. They are a real celebration of colorful pom-pomness, but what really makes them such a treat is how rapidly the leaves fold up when touched. It is as startling as, say, wrapping your hand around a Touch-me-not seed pod and having it go boom!, or a Hummingbird moth zooming in to hover inches from you in the Bee Balm, or nearly stepping on a rattlesnake. Okay, maybe not as startling as the rattlesnake, but starting in that way surprising bits of nature can be.

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