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

Tephrosia florida

Florida hoary-pea or goat's-rue, Florida hoarypea
Habit Herbs.
Stems

prostrate to procumbent, 10–80 cm, glabrous or strigulose.
Leaves

petiole usually (10–)20–40 mm;

leaflets (5 or)7–13(or 15), blades bicolored (darker abaxially), narrowly oblanceolate to oblong-oblanceolate or obovate-elliptic, 17–35 × (1.5–)3–9(–11) mm, length (2.5–)3–6 times width, apex obtuse to rounded or truncate and slightly retuse, abaxial surface usually finely and evenly sparsely strigose, rarely hirsute to hirsute-strigose, hairs relatively short, not overlapping, venation distinctly reddish, adaxial glabrate.
Racemes

axillary and terminal, 2–6-flowered, evident (flowers well above level of leaves), 5–15(–25) cm;

floral bracts persistent, linear-subulate.
Flowers

corolla yellowish white to white, aging dark purple, 10–14 mm;

stamens diadelphous;

style bearded.
Legumes

25–40 × 4–5 mm, sparsely strigulose.

Tephrosia florida
Phenology Flowering May–Jul.
Habitat Fields, dunes, turkey oak scrub, longleaf pine savannas, pine barrens, pine-palmetto, pine-oak, pine-hardwood uplands.
Elevation 10–50 m. (0–200 ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
AL; FL; GA; LA; MS; NC; SC
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Tephrosia florida is recognized by its relatively small, elongate, bicolored leaves with abaxial surfaces strigulose and with reddish venation (including secondary and tertiary veins).

Tephrosia × intermedia (Small) G. L. Nesom & Zarucchi is a putative hybrid between T. chrysophylla and T. florida (C. E. Wood Jr. 1949; D. Isely 1998; G. L. Nesom and J. L. Zarucchi 2009). Synonyms are Cracca intermedia Small, C. floridana Vail, C. smallii Vail, and T. × floridana (Vail) Isely. The hybrid is said to occur in association with the two putative parents, sporadically from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi, and its origin as a recurrent hybrid seems a reasonable hypothesis. According to Isely, it most closely resembles T. florida, differing in its shorter petioles and broader, fewer leaflets; both parents are variable in these features, and it is difficult to confirm that the putative hybrids are consistently intermediate in morphology. Perhaps the only sure way to identify the hybrid is to see it in the field, in company with the parents and in contrast to them.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Tephrosia
Sibling taxa
T. angustissima, T. chrysophylla, T. corallicola, T. curtissii, T. hispidula, T. leiocarpa, T. lindheimeri, T. mohrii, T. mysteriosa, T. onobrychoides, T. potosina, T. rugelii, T. spicata, T. tenella, T. thurberi, T. virginiana
Synonyms Galega florida, Cracca ambigua, C. gracillima, T. ambigua, T. ambigua var. gracillima, T. florida var. gracillima
Name authority (F. Dietrich) C. E. Wood: Rhodora 51: 305. (1949)
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 Fabaceae, Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America

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