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Jack ass clover, spectacle fruit

Habit Annuals, 40–200 cm.
Stems

glabrous or glabrate (sometimes smooth when dry).

Leaves

petiole 0.2–3.1 cm;

leaflets 3, green, blade ovate or obovate, (0.4–)1–4.9 × 0.4–2 cm, 1.5–4(–5.5) times as long as wide, margins entire, apex acute to rounded.

Racemes

1–1.5 cm (2–3 cm in fruit).

Flowers

sepals green, lanceolate, 0.4–1.7 × 0.2–0.7 mm, more than 1.75 times as long as wide, margins entire, glabrous;

petals yellow, oblong, 1.4–4.6 × 0.5–1.8 mm;

stamens yellow, 2–6 mm;

anthers 0.5–1.7 mm;

gynophore (reflexed in fruit), 2–12 mm in fruit, usually shorter than pedicel.

Seeds

0.5 × 0.3 mm.

Schizocarps

1.2–3.3 × 1 mm.

2n

= 40.

Wislizenia refracta

Phenology Flowering spring–fall.
Habitat Dry sandy flats, desert scrub, roadsides
Elevation 500-2400 m (1600-7900 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AZ; CA; NM; NV; TX; UT; Mexico (Chihuahua, Sonora)
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Discussion

Wislizenia refracta is known from trans-Pecos Texas, and from the Mojave Desert (San Bernardino County and Little San Bernardino Mountains in Riverside County) in California.

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

Source FNA vol. 7, p. 214.
Parent taxa Cleomaceae > Wislizenia
Sibling taxa
W. californica, W. palmeri
Synonyms W. costellata, W. melilotoides, W. refracta var. melilotoides, W. scabrida
Name authority Engelmann: in F. A. Wislizenus, Mem. Tour N. Mexico, 99. (1848)
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