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

Galactia heterophylla

Gray's milkpea
Habit Herbs from a very slender, elongate, woody taproot, also sometimes with rhizomes or rhizomelike caudex branches from root apex.
Stems

procumbent, not twining, densely strigose, hairs closely appressed, retrorse.
Leaflets

5, blades elliptic or broadly elliptic to elliptic-obovate or oblong-elliptic, 6–24 × 2–12 mm, herbaceous, veins not raised, margins strigose, apex obtuse to rounded or shallowly retuse, surfaces smooth-glaucous abaxially and moderately strigose, hairs closely appressed, usually glabrous adaxially, rarely sparsely strigose.
Inflorescences

flowers solitary and axillary or 2–5 in reduced pseudoracemes;

axis 1–10 mm.
Flowers

calyx 7–9 mm, short-strigose with closely appressed hairs;

corolla pink, deep pink, cerise, rose-purple, lavender, purple, violet-red, 11–15 mm.
Legumes

straight, (20–)30–45 × 5–7 mm, moderately strigose, hairs closely appressed.
Seeds

3–5.

Galactia heterophylla
Phenology Flowering (Mar–)Apr–Sep.
Habitat Blackbrush-cenizo brush, mesquite brush, openings in live oak-thorn scrub, gran­ite slopes, limestone ridges, roadsides, caliche outcrops, sandy prairies, hard-packed sands, sandy silt, sandy clay, gravelly sandy loam.
Elevation 10–150(–400) m. (0–500(–1300) ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
TX; Mexico (Coahuila, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas)
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Galactia heterophylla is characterized by its prostrate, non-twining stems and particularly by its five leaflets with glabrous adaxial surfaces. It occurs in about 15 counties in central and south-central Texas.

Galactia grayi Vail is an illegitimate, superfluous name that pertains here.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Galactia
Sibling taxa
G. brachypoda, G. canescens, G. elliottii, G. erecta, G. fasciculata, G. floridana, G. grisebachii, G. joselyniae, G. longifolia, G. marginalis, G. microphylla, G. minor, G. mollis, G. pinetorum, G. regularis, G. smallii, G. striata, G. texana, G. volubilis, G. wrightii
Name authority A. Gray: Boston J. Nat. Hist. 6: 171. (1850)
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