Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Crotalaria pallida

Crotalaria ochroleuca

salts rattlebox, smooth crotalaria, smooth rattlebox, striped crotalaria

slender leaf rattlebox
Habit Herbs annual or short-lived perennial.
Stems

erect, 70–250 cm, strigose.
Leaves

3-foliolate;

stipules absent;

leaflet blades linear to linear-lanceolate or elliptic-lanceolate, 50–130(–180) mm, length 7–10 times width, surfaces strigose abaxially, glabrous adaxially.
Racemes

4–12-flowered, terminal or subterminal, 15–40 cm;

bracts persistent, linear-triangular, minute.
Flowers

calyx broadly cylindrical, truncate basally, 4–6 mm, lobes triangular, shiny-glabrous;

corolla pale yellow with prominent reddish purple lines, 18–20 mm.
Legumes

straight, (40–)50–70 × (10–)15–20 mm, sparsely strigose or glabrescent.
2n

= 16.

Crotalaria pallida

Crotalaria ochroleuca
Phenology Flowering Apr–Oct.
Habitat Roadsides, ditches, prairie swales, sandy fields.
Elevation 0–10 m. (0–0 ft.)
Distribution
from USDA
Africa [Introduced in North America]
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
from FNA
AL; FL; GA; LA; MS; NC; SC; Africa [Introduced in North America; introduced also in South America (Brazil), Asia (China), Pacific Islands (Papua New Guinea), Australia]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Varieties 2 (1 in the flora).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Crotalaria ochroleuca has often been identified in the United States as C. intermedia Kotschy or C. brevidens Bentham var. intermedia (Kotschy) Polhill.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 11. FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Crotalaria Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Crotalaria
Sibling taxa
C. avonensis, C. incana, C. juncea, C. lanceolata, C. ochroleuca, C. pumila, C. purshii, C. retusa, C. rotundifolia, C. sagittalis, C. spectabilis, C. trichotoma, C. verrucosa, C. virgulata
C. avonensis, C. incana, C. juncea, C. lanceolata, C. pallida, C. pumila, C. purshii, C. retusa, C. rotundifolia, C. sagittalis, C. spectabilis, C. trichotoma, C. verrucosa, C. virgulata
Subordinate taxa
C. pallida var. obovata
Name authority Aiton: Hort. Kew. 3: 20. (1789) G. Don: Gen. Hist. 2: 138. (1832)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers