Vachellia sphaerocephala

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Vachellia sphaerocephala
Scientific classification Red Pencil Icon.png
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Fabales
Family: Fabaceae
Clade: Mimosoideae
Genus: Vachellia
Species:
V. sphaerocephala
Binomial name
Vachellia sphaerocephala
(Schltdl. & Cham.) Seigler & Ebinger [1]
Synonyms
  • Acacia sphaerocephalaSchltdl. & Cham.

Vachellia sphaerocephala, the bull's horn thorn or bee wattle, is a plant species in the family Fabaceae. The name comes from the shape of the thorns which do indeed resemble the horns of a bull. The tree has a strong, symbiotic relationship with a species of stinging ant, Pseudomyrmex ferruginea . [2] This tree is endemic to Mexico. [3]

Related Research Articles

<i>Vachellia farnesiana</i> Species of plant

Vachellia farnesiana, also known as Acacia farnesiana, and previously Mimosa farnesiana, commonly known as sweet acacia, huisache or needle bush, is a species of shrub or small tree in the legume family, Fabaceae. It is deciduous over part of its range, but evergreen in most locales. The species grows to a height of 15–30 feet (4.6–9.1 m) and grows multiple trunks. The base of each leaf is accompanied by a pair of thorns on the branch. Its flowers are used in the perfume industry.

<i>Vachellia cornigera</i>

Vachellia cornigera, commonly known as bullhorn acacia, is a swollen-thorn tree native to Mexico and Central America. The common name of "bullhorn" refers to the enlarged, hollowed-out, swollen thorns that occur in pairs at the base of leaves, and resemble the horns of a steer. In Yucatán it is called "subín", in Panamá the locals call them "cachito". The trees are commonly found in wet lowlands

<i>Vachellia collinsii</i>

Vachellia collinsii is a species of flowering plant. It grows in secondary succession in seasonally dry ecosystems in southern Central America, where it exhibits a symbiotic relationship with several species of ant. The ant-Vachellia system involving this species has been studied by ecologists like Daniel Janzen in Palo Verde National Park and Santa Rosa National Park, both in Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica. The ants chew holes in the tips of the hollow stipular thorns, known as domatia, so that they can enter, and create their colony inside. A single ant colony may span several V. collinsii trees.

<i>Vachellia tortilis</i> Species of plant

Vachellia tortilis, widely known as Acacia tortilis but now attributed to the genus Vachellia, is the umbrella thorn acacia, also known as umbrella thorn and Israeli babool, a medium to large canopied tree native to most of Africa, primarily to the savanna and Sahel of Africa, but also occurring in the Middle East.

<i>Vachellia erioloba</i>

Vachellia erioloba, still more commonly known as Acacia erioloba, is a tree of southern Africa in the family Fabaceae. Its preferred habitat is the deep dry sandy soils in parts of South Africa, Botswana, the western areas of Zimbabwe and Namibia. It is also native to Angola, south-west Mozambique, Zambia and Swaziland. The tree was first described by Ernst Heinrich Friedrich Meyer and Johann Franz Drège in 1836. The camel thorn is a protected tree in South Africa.

<i>Vachellia caven</i> Species of plant

Vachellia caven is an ornamental tree in the family Fabaceae. Vachellia caven is native to Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. It grows four to five metres tall and bears very stiff and sharp white thorns up to 2 cm in length. It blooms in Spring, with bright yellow flower clusters 1 cm to 2 cm in diameter.

<i>Vachellia nilotica</i> Species of flowering plant in the bean family Fabaceae

Vachellia nilotica is a flowering plant tree in the family Fabaceae. It is native to Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. It is also a Weed of National Significance in Australia as well as a Federal Noxious Weed in the United States.

<i>Vachellia horrida</i>

Vachellia horrida is a low spreading shrub or sometimes tree native to both the wet and dry scrublands of tropical to subtropical East Africa. Common names for it are Cape Gum and Dev-Babul. It is also found elsewhere in Africa, Asia, India and South America. It frequently has stipular spines 9.5 cm long. V. horrida is an important browse plant in the tropics, particularly during the dry season.

<i>Vachellia karroo</i>

Vachellia karroo, commonly known as the Sweet thorn, is a species of acacia, native to southern Africa from southern Angola east to Mozambique, and south to South Africa.

<i>Vachellia sieberiana</i>

Vachellia sieberiana, until recently known as Acacia sieberiana and commonly known as the paperbark thorn or paperbark acacia, is a tree native to southern Africa and introduced into Pakistan. It is used in many areas for various purposes. The tree varies from 3 to 25 m in height, with a trunk diameter of 0.6 to 1.8 m. It is not listed as being a threatened species.

Vachellia nilotica subsp. nilotica is a perennial tree native to Africa. It has also been introduced to the Indian Ocean area and to the Middle East.

<i>Vachellia xanthophloea</i>

Vachellia xanthophloea is a tree in the family Fabaceae, commonly known in English as the fever tree. This species of Vachellia is native to eastern and southern Africa. It has also become a landscape tree in other warm climates, outside of its natural range.

<i>Vachellia drepanolobium</i>

Vachellia drepanolobium, commonly known as whistling thorn, is a swollen-thorn acacia native to East Africa. The whistling thorn grows up to 6 meters tall. It produces a pair of straight spines at each node, some of which have large bulbous bases. These swollen spines are naturally hollow and occupied by any one of several symbiotic ant species. The common name of the plant is derived from the observation that when wind blows over bulbous spines in which ants have made entry/exit holes, they create a whistling noise.

<i>Vachellia</i>

Vachellia is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae, commonly known as thorn trees or acacias. It belongs to the subfamily Mimosoideae. Its species were considered members of genus Acacia until 2009. Vachellia can be distinguished from other acacias by its capitate inflorescences and spinescent stipules. Before discovery of the New World, Europeans in the Mediterranean region were familiar with several species of Vachellia, which they knew as sources of medicine, and had names for them that they inherited from the Greeks and Romans.

<i>Vachellia reficiens</i>

Vachellia reficiens, commonly known as red-bark acacia, red thorn, false umbrella tree, or false umbrella thorn, is a deciduous tree or shrub of the pea family (Fabaceae) native to southern Africa, often growing in an upside-down cone shape and with a relatively flat crown.

<i>Vachellia flava</i>

Vachellia flava, synonym Acacia ehrenbergiana, is a species of drought-resistant bush or small tree, commonly known as salam in Arabic. It is found in the Sahara, the northern Sahel, parts of East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.

<i>Vachellia haematoxylon</i>

Vachellia haematoxylon is a protected tree in South Africa.

<i>Vachellia abyssinica</i>

Vachellia abyssinica is a tree up to 16 m tall. Its bark is reddish-brown on older trees. On younger trees it is pale yellowish-brown, peeling off in papery wads. Young twigs are softly hairy. Thorns are aligned in straight pairs at nodes. Leaves are in pinnae pairs of 20-40; the leaflets are very small, up to 4 × 0.75 mm. The inflorescence is arranged in white spherical heads. The involucel is located in the lower half of the peduncle. Seed pods are dehiscent.

<i>Vachellia robusta</i>

Vachellia robusta, the splendid thorn, is an Afrotropical tree species.

Tetraponera penzigi, is a species of ant of the subfamily Pseudomyrmecinae, which can be found in East Africa. It forms an obligate symbiosis with the whistling thorn, a dominant tree in some upland areas of East Africa.

References

  1. Seigler DS, Ebinger JE. (2005). "New combinations in the genus Vachellia (Fabaceae: Mimosoideae) from the New World". Phytologia. 87 (3): 139–78.
  2. Whitney. H.M. and B.J. Glover. 2007. Coevolution: Plant–Insect. Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, 1–7
  3. Encyclopedia of Life