Psoralidium tenuiflorum – Slimflower Scurfpea

Psoralidium tenuiflorum - Slimflower Scurfpea, Scurfy Pea, Scurf Pea, Few-flowered Scurf-pea, Slender Scurf Pea, Wedgeleaf Scurfpea, Wild Alfalfa (flowers)

Psoralidium tenuiflorum - Slimflower Scurfpea, Scurfy Pea, Scurf Pea, Few-flowered Scurf-pea, Slender Scurf Pea, Wedgeleaf Scurfpea, Wild Alfalfa (flowers)

Psoralidium tenuiflorum - Slimflower Scurfpea, Scurfy Pea, Scurf Pea, Few-flowered Scurf-pea, Slender Scurf Pea, Wedgeleaf Scurfpea, Wild Alfalfa (leaves)

Psoralidium tenuiflorum - Slimflower Scurfpea, Scurfy Pea, Scurf Pea, Few-flowered Scurf-pea, Slender Scurf Pea, Wedgeleaf Scurfpea, Wild Alfalfa

Plant Name

Scientific Name: Psoralidium tenuiflorum

Synonyms: Psoralea floribunda, P. obtusifolia, P. tenuiflora, Psoralidium batesii

Common Names: Slimflower Scurfpea, Scurfy Pea, Scurf Pea, Few-flowered Scurf-pea, Slender Scurf Pea, Wedgeleaf Scurfpea, Wild Alfalfa

Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial

Growth Habit: Herb/Forb

Arizona Native Status: Native

Habitat: Upland. This wildflower typically grows on dry, open slopes or in canyons in desert grasslands and pinyon, oak, and juniper savannahs.

Flower Color: Violet

Flowering Season: Late spring, Summer, Early Fall

Height: Up to 3 feet (0.9 m) tall

Description: The flowers are in open racemes on long stalks that emerge from the leaf axils. The small, pea-like flowers have bluish purple aging to cream or tan petals and reddish sepals. The flowers are followed by small, plump, oval-shaped, beaked, glandular bean pods each containing a shiny, brown, kidney bean-shaped seed. The leaves have short petioles and small, lanceolate stipules and are green, gland-dotted, alternate, hairless above, hairy below, and palmately compound with 3 or sometimes 5 round-tipped, oblanceolate to narrowly egg-shaped leaflets. The stems are slender, wiry, green, hairy, ridged, glandular, branched, and erect to ascending. The plants have deep taproots.

Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) has smaller, more tightly clustered flowers and toothed leaflets.

Special Characteristics

Poisonous – Although used medicinally, the plants are poisonous to mammals. The plants can be burned to repel mosquitoes.

Classification

Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision: Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division: Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass: Rosidae
Order: Fabales
Family: Fabaceae – Pea family
Genus: Psoralidium Rydb. – scurfpea
Species: Psoralidium tenuiflorum (Pursh) Rydb. – slimflower scurfpea

More About This Plant

Arizona County Distribution Map