''Elephantorrhiza elephantina'', commonly known as the eland's wattle or elephant's root, is a

subshrub A subshrub ( Latin ''suffrutex'') or dwarf shrub is a short shrub, and is a woody plant. Prostrate shrub is a related term. "Subshrub" is often used interchangeably with "bush".Jackson, Benjamin, Daydon; A Glossary of Botanic Terms with their ...

in the mimosoid clade of

legume A legume () is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. When used as a dry grain, the seed is also called a pulse. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consumption, for livestock fo ...

s. They occur widely and in several bioregions of southern Africa. Considerable size variation has been noted, and

polyploidy Polyploidy is a condition in which the cells of an organism have more than one pair of (homologous) chromosomes. Most species whose cells have nuclei (eukaryotes) are diploid, meaning they have two sets of chromosomes, where each set contains ...

was suspected.

Description

They have a suffrutescent habit typical of their genus. They produce unbranched and unarmed aerial stems of less than a metre tall. The various populations show considerable variation in terms of the number of pinnae pairs and the number, size and shape of the leaflets. They flower from September to November and are pollinated mainly by the African honeybee. The flowering racemes are typically confined to the lower part of the stem, so that the pods are usually suspended just above ground level, or alternatively rest inconspicuously on the ground.

Similar species

'' Elephantorrhiza burkei'' has similar aerial parts, but its seeds are consistently smaller than those of ''E. elephantina''.cf. Bothalia 11:252 (1974) Mature specimens of ''E. burkei'' especially, produce their flowering racemes on the branched stems, so that the pods appear in conspicuous positions some distance above ground. Seed shape varies considerably in ''E. burkei'', from elliptic to nearly quadrate if they are tightly compacted and laterally compressed in their pods. In either species the two pod valves will separate from their margin, which persists as a nearly continuous and empty frame, reminiscent of some ''

Entada ''Entada'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae, in the mimosoid clade of the subfamily Caesalpinioideae. It consists of some 30 species of trees, shrubs and tropical lianas. About 21 species are known from Africa, six from ...

'' pods.cf. Palmer & Pitman, Trees S. Afr. 2:827, 1973 Pods of ''E. elephantina'' generally disintegrate and disappear more rapidly than those of ''E. burkei'', where the two pod valves roll back and persist with their margins for many months.

Gallery

file:Elephantorrhiza elephantina, bloeiwyse, Faerie Glen NR, h.jpg, file:Elephantorrhiza elephantina, bloeiwyse, Faerie Glen NR, i.jpg, file:Mimosoideae spp Taub72, crop1.png, file:Elephantorrhiza elephantina, bloeiwyse, Faerie Glen NR, d.jpg, file:Mimosoideae spp Taub72, crop2.png, file:Elephantorrhiza elephantina, loof en peule, Faerie Glen NR, b.jpg,

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15534693 Mimosoids Flora of Namibia Endangered plants Geoxyles