Acacia greggii: Encyclopedia - Acacia greggii

Acacia greggii

Acacia greggii is a species of Acacia native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, from the extreme south of Utah (where, at 37°10' N it is the northernmost naturally-occurring Acacia species anywhere in the world) south through southern Nevada, southeast California, Arizona, New Mexico and western Texas to Baja California, Sinaloa and Nuevo León in Mexico.

Common names include Catclaw Acacia, Gregg's Catclaw, Devil's Claw, Paradise Flower, Wait-a-minute tree, and Wait-a-bit tree; these names mostly come from the fact that the tree has numerous hooked thorns shaped like a cat's claw, that tend to hook onto passers-by; the hooked person must stop ("wait a minute") to remove the thorns carefully to avoid injury.

It is a large shrub or small tree growing to 10 m tall with a trunk up to 20-30 cm diameter. The leaves are deciduous, and bipinnate, divided into 1-3 pairs of pinnae, each pinna 2-3 cm long with 10-18 leaflets 3-6 mm long. The flowers are produced in dense spikes, each flower with five yellow petals 3 mm long and numerous stamens 6 mm long. The fruit is a flat, twisted legume (pod) 6-15 cm long, containing several hard, dark brown seeds.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Acacia greggii", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki