''Cleomella arborea'' is a

perennial In horticulture, the term perennial ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. It has thus been defined as a plant that lives more than 2 years. The term is also ...

shrub or bush in the spiderflower family (

Cleomaceae The Cleomaceae are a small family of flowering plants in the order Brassicales, comprising about 220 species in two genera, '' Cleome'' and '' Cleomella''. These genera were previously included in the family Capparaceae, but were raised to a dis ...

) known by the common names bladderpod, bladderpod spiderflower, and burro-fat. It has yellow flowers in bloom all months of the year. It emits a foul odor to discourage herbivory from insects.

Range and habitat

''Cleomella arborea'' is commonly found along roadsides,

desert dry wash Desert dry wash is a North American desert vegetation type (or biome) occurring in the flat bottoms of canyons and drainages that lack water at or near the surface most of the year, and are subject to periodic severe flooding events.Pam MacKay, Mo ...

es, and flat areas up to in the western

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert (; ; ) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Mohave people, it is located pr ...

and

Colorado Desert The Colorado Desert is a part of the larger Sonoran Desert located in California, United States, and Baja California, Mexico. It encompasses approximately , including the heavily irrigated Coachella, Imperial and Mexicali valleys. It is home to ...

to the Baja California Peninsula. It is native to

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

and the Baja California Peninsula where it grows in a variety of habitats usually described as desert or brush. Peritoma_arborea_8240

Description

It is a densely branching

shrub A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple ...

high covered with tiny hairs. Its stalked leaves are generally composed of three equal leaflets long, oval to elliptic in shape and pointed at the tip. The plant produces abundant

inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...

s at the ends of the stem branches much of the year. The four

sepal A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 Etymology The term ''sepalum'' ...

s are fused about halfway from their base. Each flower has four bright yellow long petals, six protruding

stamen The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filament ...

s with

anther The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filament ...

s. The style is or aborts before flowering. The fruit is a leathery prolate spheroid capsule long and wide on a stalk. It is smooth and green when new, aging to light brown. A typical inflorescence bears a number of flower buds at its tip, open flowers proximal to the buds, and maturing fruits which have shed their flowers below these. In the previous genus name, ''Isomeris'', "''iso''" means "equal", and "''meris''" means "part", referring to the stamens being of equal length.

Ethnobotany

Various parts of bladderpod have been used by many tribes indigenous to California and Baja California. The seeds and flowers were eaten by the Diegueño (former Spanish name for

Kumeyaay The Kumeyaay, also known as 'Iipai-Tiipai or by the historical Spanish name Diegueño, is a tribe of Indigenous peoples of the Americas who live at the northern border of Baja California in Mexico and the southern border of California in the Uni ...

) and

Kawaiisu The Kawaiisu Nation (pronounced: "ka-wai-ah-soo") are a tribe of indigenous people of California in the United States. The Kawaiisu Nation is the only treatied tribe in California, Ratified Treaty (No. 256), 9 Stat. 984, Dec. 30, 1849. This Tr ...

tribes. The tribes would boil the gathered plants to remove any bitter taste. The Kawaiisu tribe also prepared the flowers by cooking them in the dirt with hot rocks overnight until flowers turned red. The

Cahuilla The Cahuilla, also known as ʔívil̃uqaletem or Ivilyuqaletem, are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the various tribes of the Cahuilla Nation, living in the inland areas of southern California. ...

tribes prepared the pods in a similar fashion as the Kawaiisu; they cooked the pods in the ground using hot stones. The Kumeyaay preferred to consume the flowers of the plant rather than the leaves or pods. After cooking, they ate the flowers alone or with other ingredients, commonly eaten alongside

tortilla A tortilla (, ) is a thin, circular unleavened flatbread from Mesoamerica originally made from maize hominy meal, and now also from wheat flour. The Aztecs and other Nahuatl speakers called tortillas ''tlaxcalli'' (). First made by the indi ...

s or

acorn mush The acorn is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'', ''Notholithocarpus'' and ''Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains a seedling surrounded by two cotyledons (seedling leaves), enclosed in a t ...

. The immature pea pods of the plant resemble garden peas and are edible small quantities; they may be used similarly to

caper ''Capparis spinosa'', the caper bush, also called Flinders rose, is a perennial plant that bears rounded, fleshy leaves and large white to pinkish-white flowers. The taxonomic status of the species is controversial and unsettled. Species with ...

s. Cooking is recommended to remove the bitter characteristics of the plant which derive from glucocapparin.

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from1=Q42734327, from2=Q15519490, from3=Q5131672

arborea Arborea is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Oristano, Sardinia, Italy, whose economy is largely based on agriculture and cattle breeding with production of vegetables, rice, fruit and milk (notably the local milk product Arborea). Histo ...

Flora of the California desert regions Flora of Baja California Flora of the Sonoran Deserts Flora of California Plants described in 1838 Taxa named by Thomas Nuttall