Cercis canadensis L. texensis (S. Watson) M. Hopk., texas redbud. Shrub, winter–deciduous, with ascending principal branches, in range to 300 cm tall; shoots sometimes 2–dimensional (plagiotropic), foliage forming after flowers open and not after mid–spring, the blade strongly folded (conduplicate) with upper surface totally hidden, nearly glabrous but some short nonglandular hairs and minute glandular hairs on exposed (lower) surface of developing leaves; bark dull gray and often with conspicuous blotches in shades of gray.
Stems ± zigzagged, tough, with projecting leaf bases, always glabrous, forming periderm first year.
Leaves helically alternate, simple, petiolate with pulvinus at base and top, with stipules; stipules 2, attached obliquely to leaf base (below pulvinus), cupped–obovate to cupped–broadly elliptic or somewhat diamond–shaped, 5.5—10.5 × 4—5.5 mm, for the latest formed leaves in spring ovate, flat, and < 1.5 mm long, entire, rounded to obtuse at tip, pinnately veined, green with colorless margins; petiole to 45 mm long, pulvinus at base 2—3 mm long, axis above pulvinus cylindric, pulvinus at top 3—4+ mm long (upper pulvinus larger); blade inversely heart–shaped, (35—)50—115 × (30—)40—130 mm, length < width, cordate at base, entire with margin edges nongreen, broadly acute to obtuse or rounded at tip, palmately veined mostly with 9 principal veins at base and slightly raised on lower surface, with elaborate network of minor veins, upper surface glabrous, lower surface sometimes short–pilose between veins several mm from pulvinus (domatia).
Inflorescence raceme, on short shoots along woody twigs, to 7–flowered, bracteate; short axis below flowers bumpy with bud scars having raised bases, some nonglandular hairs < 1 mm long and short glandular hairs, rachis with essentially no internodes; bractlets subtending pedicel 2 arising from elevated base, ± boat–shaped, ca. 1.5 mm long, pinkish and membranous, short–ciliate and fringed on margins, ± keeled and keel short–ciliate, having a subterminal tuft of reddish short hairs, early–abscised; pedicel cylindric, 9—11 × 0.5—0.6 mm, rose to deep rose (darker in cultivated forms).
Flower bisexual, bilateral, 7—8 mm across; fragrance absent; nectary on receptacle tissue near ovary, nectar–producing; calyx 5– lobed, asymmetrically cup–shaped and appearing pouched and slightly compressed side–to–side, 5 × 5 × 3.5 mm, rose–purple, glabrous; lobes 2 upper, 2 lateral, 1 lower, subequal, short–semicircular, ca. 0.6 × 1.5—2 mm, lower lobe the widest, rose to rose–purple, short–ciliate on rounded margin, inner surface above midpoint with minute, sessile, colorless glandular hairs having spheric heads; petals 5, somewhat dimorphic, clawed, light pink–purple (cultivated forms variable and often darker), pinnately veined, glabrous; banner projecting forward, claw, shallowly crescent–shaped in ×–section, ± 3.5 mm long, limb bent 120° from claw, ovate, ca. 6.5 × 4.5 mm, rounded and somewhat hooded at top; wings 2 ascending–spreading on top of perianth, similar to banner but each limb bent 90—110° from claw, divergent from flower, and not hooded; keel petals 2 (not fused), lateral to pistil and cluster of stamens, claw 2.5—3 mm long, pale pink, limb ovate and distinctly cupped, ca. 8 × 5.5 mm, > wings + banner and slightly darker, rounded at tip; stamens 10 in a ring surrounding pistil, free; filaments the widest at base, somewhat S–shaped, slightly bent upward near base, and mostly gradually curved upward, 5 filaments long alternating with 5 shorter filaments, ca. 8—9 mm (straightened), white at base only then rose or purplish rose at base becoming paler to pink and white at slender top, having colorless papillate–hairs at and below base of ovary; anthers dorsifixed (nearly versatile), 0.8—1 mm long, red–purple, longitudinally dehiscent; pollen pale yellow; pistil 1, 8.5—9 mm long, stalked (stipe), the stalk 1.5—2 mm long, purple or purplish; ovary superior, narrowly fusiform, to midpoint of pistil, green, glabrous, 1–chambered with to 8 ovules attached to upper side; style straight at base to curved approaching tip, purplish; stigma terminal, compressed top–to–bottom, greenish, short–papillate.
Fruit pod (legume), indehiscent or tardily narrowly dehiscent along lower side, to 6–seeded, fusiform and strongly flattened side–to–side, 48—65 × 10—13 mm, brown, veiny with veins crossing between upper and lower edges.
Seed roundish ovate in outline compressed side–to–side, ca. 5 × 4.3—5 × 2 mm, dull brown.
A. C. Gibson