Acacia greggii is a species of
AcaciaAcacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1773. Many non-Australian species tend to be thorny, whereas the majority of Australian acacias are not...
native to the
southwestern United StatesThe Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
and northern
MexicoThe 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...
, from the extreme south of
UtahUtah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
(where, at 37°10' N it is the northernmost naturally occurring
Acacia species anywhere in the world) south through southern
NevadaNevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
, southeast
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
,
ArizonaArizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
,
New MexicoNew Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
and western
TexasTexas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
to
Baja CaliforniaBaja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...
,
SinaloaSinaloa officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 18 municipalities and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales....
and
Nuevo LeónNuevo León It is located in Northeastern Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Tamaulipas to the north and east, San Luis Potosí to the south, and Coahuila to the west. To the north, Nuevo León has a 15 kilometer stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border adjacent to the U.S...
in Mexico.
Common names include
Catclaw Acacia,
Catclaw Mesquite,
Gregg's Catclaw,
Devil's Claw,
Paradise Flower,
Wait-a-minute Tree, and
Wait-a-bit Tree; these names mostly come from the fact that the tree has numerous hooked
thornsIn 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...
with the shape and size of a
catThe cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
's claw, that tend to hook onto passers-by; the hooked person must stop ("wait a minute") to remove the thorns carefully to avoid injury or shredded clothing. (Note: "Cat's Claw" is also used to refer to
Uncaria tomentosaUncaria tomentosa is a woody vine found in the tropical jungles of South and Central America, which derives its name from its claw-shaped thorns...
, a woody vine found in the tropical jungles of South and Central America)
The patronym "greggii" refers to
Josiah GreggJosiah Gregg was a merchant, explorer, naturalist, and author of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico regions. He is most famous for his book Commerce of the Prairies.-Early years:...
, author, explorer, and amateur naturalist of the
American SouthwestThe Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
and northern Mexico.
Ecology
A. greggii is most common in
arroyosAn arroyo , a Spanish word translated as brook, and also called a wash is usually a dry creek or stream bed—gulch that temporarily or seasonally fills and flows after sufficient rain. Wadi is a similar term in Africa. In Spain, a rambla has a similar meaning to arroyo.-Types and processes:Arroyos...
where its roots have access to deep water. Its seeds require physical
scarificationScarification in botany involves cutting the seed coat using abrasion, thermal stress, or chemicals to encourage germination.-In botany:Scarification is a natural process important for germination of many species' seeds. This process involves the breaching of the natural seed coating by mechanical,...
in order to germinate. This effectively prevents
germinationGermination is the process in which a plant or fungus emerges from a seed or spore, respectively, and begins growth. The most common example of germination is the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm. However the growth of a sporeling from a spore, for example the...
unless a
flash floodA flash flood is a rapid flooding of geomorphic low-lying areas—washes, rivers, dry lakes and basins. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a storm, hurricane, or tropical storm or meltwater from ice or snow flowing over ice sheets or snowfields...
disturbs the area and deposits enough water to increase the likelihood that seedlings will be able to establish deep enough roots to survive the dry season. Catclaw is fully
droughtA drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
deciduousDeciduous 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...
and will usually lack
leavesA 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....
for most of the year.
A. greggii has extrafloral nectaries, a trait shared with other acacias. A tentative connection has been made between these glands and
insectInsects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s that would suggest a mutualistic relationship (as found in other
Acacia species).
AntAnts are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...
s are known to use the glands as a source of food and water, and may provide some defense for the plant against
herbivorousHerbivores are organisms that are anatomically and physiologically adapted to eat plant-based foods. Herbivory is a form of consumption in which an organism principally eats autotrophs such as plants, algae and photosynthesizing bacteria. More generally, organisms that feed on autotrophs in...
insects. Like other arroyo trees in family
FabaceaeThe 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...
,
A. greggii is frequently afflicted with Desert Mistletoe,
PhoradendronPhoradendron is a genus of mistletoes, native to warm temperate and tropical regions of the Americas. Traditionally, the genus has been placed in the family Viscaceae, but recent genetic research acknowledged by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group shows this family to be correctly placed within a larger...
californicumPhoradendron californicum, the desert mistletoe or mesquite mistletoe, is a parasitic plant native to southern California, Nevada, Arizona, and Baja California...
. Unlike other legumes,
A. greggii is not known to form
root noduleRoot nodules occur on the roots of plants that associate with symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Under nitrogen-limiting conditions, capable plants form a symbiotic relationship with a host-specific strain of bacteria known as rhizobia...
associations with
nitrogen-fixingNitrogen fixation is the natural process, either biological or abiotic, by which nitrogen in the atmosphere is converted into ammonia . This process is essential for life because fixed nitrogen is required to biosynthesize the basic building blocks of life, e.g., nucleotides for DNA and RNA and...
bacteriaDiazotrophs are bacteria and archaea that fix atmospheric nitrogen gas into a more usable form such as ammonia.A diazotroph is an organism that is able to grow without external sources of fixed nitrogen. Examples of organisms that do this are rhizobia and Frankia and Azospirillum. All diazotrophs...
.
Devil's Claw may be an example of an evolutionary
anachronismAn anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...
, in which the range and renewal of the species is limited due to the extinction of the mammallian
megafaunaIn terrestrial zoology, megafauna are "giant", "very large" or "large" animals. The most common thresholds used are or...
responsible for seed dispersal. Within this model, the scarification required to germinate the seeds would have occurred during the chewing and
digestionDigestion is the mechanical and chemical breakdown of food into smaller components that are more easily absorbed into a blood stream, for instance. Digestion is a form of catabolism: a breakdown of large food molecules to smaller ones....
of the fruit by a large
mammalMammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
, who later passes the seed intact some distance from the original tree.
Description
It is a large
shrubA 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...
or small
treeA 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...
growing to 10 m (32.8 ft) tall with a trunk up to 20–30 cm (7.9–11.8 in) diameter. The grey-green
leavesA 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
deciduousDeciduous 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...
, and bipinnate, divided into 1-3 pairs of pinnae, each pinna 2 centimetre long with 10-18
leafletA 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 that are 3–6 mm (0.118110236220472–0.236220472440945 in). Pinnae are most frequently in two pairs, with the proximal pair perpendicular to the petiolule and the distal pair forming a V at the tip. The
flowerA 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 produced in dense cylindrical spikes, each flower with five yellow 3 mm (0.118110236220472 in)
petalPetals 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 and numerous yellow 6 mm (0.236220472440945 in)
stamenThe stamen is the pollen producing reproductive organ of a flower...
s. The
fruitIn 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 flat, twisted
legume (pod) 6–15 cm (2.4–5.9 in) long, containing several hard, dark brown
seedA 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. The seed pod is constricted between seeds (a
lomentA loment is a type of modified legume that breaks apart at constrictions occurring between the segments of the seeds. Being a legume, it is dry at maturity and is dehiscent, meaning that it will split open at maturity....
), and
seed dispersalSeed dispersal is the movement or transport of seeds away from the parent plant. Plants have limited mobility and consequently rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their propagules, including both abiotic and biotic vectors. Seeds can be dispersed away from the parent plant...
occurs both through
dehiscenceDehiscence is the opening, at maturity, in a pre-defined way, of a plant structure, such as a fruit, anther, or sporangium, to release its contents. Sometimes this involves the complete detachment of a part. Structures that open in this way are said to be dehiscent...
and breaks at these constrictions.
Ethnobotany
A. greggii, even though it is used as
forageFodder or animal feed is any agricultural foodstuff used specifically to feed domesticated livestock such as cattle, goats, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. Most animal feed is from plants but some is of animal origin...
for livestock, contains a potentially poisonous cyanogenic glycoside called prunasin.
A. greggii beans were gathered and eaten by desert
tribesThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
of
North AmericaNorth America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, including the
ChemehueviThe Chemehuevi are a federally recognized Native American tribe enrolled in the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe of the Chemehuevi Reservation. They are the southernmost branch of Paiutes.-Reservation:...
of the Southern Paiute, and stems were used in construction and tool making. Some sources also suggest that the plant was used as a
laxativeLaxatives are foods, compounds, or drugs taken to induce bowel movements or to loosen the stool, most often taken to treat constipation. Certain stimulant, lubricant, and saline laxatives are used to evacuate the colon for rectal and/or bowel examinations, and may be supplemented by enemas under...
. Chemical compounds called
amineAmines are organic compounds and functional groups that contain a basic nitrogen atom with a lone pair. Amines are derivatives of ammonia, wherein one or more hydrogen atoms have been replaced by a substituent such as an alkyl or aryl group. Important amines include amino acids, biogenic amines,...
s are present in the tree.
Some chemical compounds found in Acacia greggii
- Beta-methyl-phenethylamine
β-Methylphenethylamine is a stimulant drug of the phenethylamine chemical class that is related to amphetamine . It is found in Acacia species i.e. Acacia rigidula, Acacia greggii, Acacia schaffneri and notably Acacia berlandieri . The latter produces a paralytic condition in livestock....
- Catechin
Catechin is a natural phenol antioxidant plant secondary metabolite. The term catechins is also commonly used to refer to the related family of flavonoids and the subgroup flavan-3-ols ....
- Fisetin
Fisetin is a flavonol, a structurally distinct chemical substance that belongs to the flavonoid group of polyphenols. It can be found in many plants, where it serves as a colouring agent...
- Hordenine
Hordenine is a phenethylamine alkaloid with antibacterial and antibiotic properties. It stimulates the release of norepinephrine in mammals, working as a stimulant...
- Phenethylamine
Phenylethylamine or phenethylamine is a natural monoamine alkaloid, trace amine, and also the name of a class of chemicals with many members well known for psychoactive drug and stimulant effects. Studies suggest that phenylethylamine functions as a neuromodulator or neurotransmitter in the...
- Quercetin
Quercetin , a flavonol, is a plant-derived flavonoid found in fruits, vegetables, leaves and grains. It also may be used as an ingredient in supplements, beverages or foods.-Occurrence:...
- Tyramine
Tyramine is a naturally occurring monoamine compound and trace amine derived from the amino acid tyrosine. Tyramine acts as a catecholamine releasing agent...
Botanical varieties
- Acacia greggii var. greggii
- Acacia greggii var. wrightii
Acacia greggii var.
wrightii is found in
TexasTexas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, USA while
Acacia greggii var.
greggii is found throughout the Southwestern United States.
General references