Eysenhardtia texana Scheele, texas kidneywood. Shrub, winter–deciduous, unarmed, to 400 cm tall; shoots often 2–dimensional (plagiotropic), short–hairy, gland–dotted with blisterlike glands especially on lower surfaces of leaves and strongly odorous (by some foul–smelling).
Stems ± cylindric, with 3 ridges descending a short distance from each leaf, tough, often reddish purple, having persistent, enlarged leaf bases, short–hairy.
Leaves helically alternate, odd–1–pinnately compound with 15—47 leaflets in mostly subopposite pairs 3—5 mm apart, the shortest leaflets at the base, petiolate with pulvinus, with stipules; stipules 2, attached to leaf base just below pulvinus and abscission constriction, linear above base, < 2.5 mm long, densely puberulent, typically abscising early; petiole 4—6 mm long, pulvinus barrel–shaped and ca. 1 mm long, above pulvinus channeled and short–hairy; rachis channeled, on upper side ridges with evenly spaced minute projections, sides with fine, short hairs; stipels attached to base of petiolule 2, the stipel on upper side arising from ridge, ca. 0.3 mm long, purple–red, with short hairs, the stipel on the lower side narrowly conic and glandlike, ca. 0.4 mm long, yellow–green; petiolule = pulvinus, 0.5—0.6 mm long; blades of leaflets broadly elliptic or somewhat obovate, 3.5—8(—12) × 2.5—4 mm, rounded at base, entire, rounded to truncate at tip, 3–veined just above base and with midrib slightly raised on lower surface and with netlike minor venation, with scattered, appressed, fine short hairs, upper surface flat, lower surface gland–dotted with evenly spaced, blisterlike glands, paler than upper surface.
Inflorescence raceme, terminal, to 60 × 12 mm, with many flowers alternate and subopposite or some in pseudowhorls to 6 flowers, bracteate, short–hairy; peduncle low–ridged, to 7 mm long; rachis conspicuously ridged having a ridge descending from each bractlet; bractlet awl–shaped, at base of raceme to 1.5 mm long and above ± 1 mm long; pedicel short and increasing 2× in fruit, lacking bracteoles at top.
Flower bisexual, bilateral, modified pealike (papilionaceous), 4—5 mm across, ca. 5.5 mm long, with sweet fragrance; calyx unequally 5–lobed, 2.5—3 mm long, light green, short–hairy to puberulent; tube funnel–shaped, longer on lower side, oblique–truncate at base, having the deepest sinuses on sides between upper 3 lobes and lower 2 lobes, with blisterlike glands; lobes ± deltate, 0.2—0.3 mm long, the lower lobes overlapping; petals 5, unequal, with slightly wider banner and lacking a keel, ± clawed (except banner), claw to 1.5 mm long, banner oblanceolate (oblong), ca. 5.2 × 1.5 mm, white with pale purple markings below midpoint, glabrous, other petals ca. 4.5 × 1.2 mm (including claw), < banner, white; stamens 10, diadelphous (9 fused + 1 free), exserted; filament sheet to 3.8 mm long, free portions of filaments alternately short and longer, to 1 mm long, white, glabrous; anthers dorsifixed, dithecal, 0.3—0.4 mm long, the shorter filaments with the longer anther, light yellow, longitudinally dehiscent; pollen light yellow; pistil 1, 4.5—5.2 mm long, not stalked; ovary superior, obovoid compressed side–to–side, < 1 × 0.6 mm, green, glands inconspicuous but developing in fruit, 1–chambered with 2 ovules; style cylindric but with swelling on outer side where bent approaching stigma, ca. 4.5 mm long, green, glabrate; stigma capitate and hemispheric, diagonally oriented, ca. 0.3 × 1.2—1.5 mm, green.
Fruit pod (legume), dry, in range indehiscent, typically 1–seeded, when young appearing hatchet–shaped maturing canoe–shaped and curved upward, 6.5—8 × 1.8—2.5 mm also with persistent short beak (lower style) and often the dried style, light brown, leathery, bulging at seed, sparsely short–hairy, gland–dotted with blisterlike glands mostly above midpoint, the glands darker than wall and golden brown or aging red–brown; calyx persistent and appressed, short–hairy and gland–dotted; pedicel ± appressed.
Seed lanceoloid (oblong) and often curved somewhat like fruit, ca. 4.5 × 1.5 mm, brown, with circular hilum 1 mm from tip.
A. C. Gibson