Galactia wrightii

Martin and Hutchins 1980

Duration: Perennial Nativity: Native Lifeform: Vine General: Sprawling perennial with elongate stems, twining or prostrate, 15-50 cm or more long. Leaves: Alternate, leaflets oblong or elliptic with entire margins, 15-30 mm long, usually tri-foliolate with deciduous stipules. Flowers: Many flowered axillary racemes, flowers purplish or yellowish on peduncles 7-15 cm long, calyx of 4 unequal lobes, upper 2 united, lower ones longer than others, with broad erect standard and keel coherent to the wings; anthers alike, style filiform and not bearded. Fruits: Linear oblong pod, flattened, 2-valved, linear, 20-30 mm long, canescent. Ecology: Found sprawling over other plants and in rocky canyons from 4,500-6,000 ft (1372-1981 m); flowers July-September. Distribution: AZ, s NM, s TX; south to n MEX. Notes: Distinguished by being a sprawling, twining perennial vine, crawling over and tangling with other vegetation; the trifoliate, linear-elliptic leaves which are more pubescent and silvery-reflective on the undersides and less hairy and green above; and the whitish-pink banner and dark pink wings of the flower. Resembles Phaseolus but doesn-t have the incurved keel. Ethnobotany: Unknown Etymology: Galactia comes from the Greek gala, meaning milky, for the sap, while wrightii is named for Charles Wright (1811-1885) an American botanical collector. Synonyms: None Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015