''Thermopsis macrophylla'' is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common names Santa Inez goldenbanner and Santa Ynez false-lupine.

Distribution

It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

Santa Barbara County, California Santa Barbara County, officially the County of Santa Barbara (), is a County (United States), county located in Southern California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 448,229. The county seat is Santa Barbara, California ...

, where there are 500 to 2500 individuals remaining in the

Santa Ynez Mountains The Santa Ynez Mountains are a portion of the Transverse Ranges, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges of the west coast of North America. It is the westernmost range in the Transverse Ranges. The range is a large fault block of Cenozoic age created ...

.The Nature Conservancy
/ref>Center for Plant Conservation
/ref> Only two occurrences have been confirmed recently, but the appearance of plants in coming seasons will depend on

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...

activity in the region, because plants spring up from the dormant

seed bank A seed bank (also seed banks, seeds bank or seed vault) stores seeds to preserve genetic diversity; hence it is a type of gene bank. There are many reasons to store seeds. One is to preserve the genes that plant breeders need to increase yield, ...

after fire. All the known populations occur on wildlands within the

Los Padres National Forest Los Padres National Forest is a United States national forest in Southern California, southern and central California. Administered by the United States Forest Service, Los Padres includes most of the mountainous land along the California coast ...

. The plant grows in

chaparral Chaparral ( ) is a shrubland plant plant community, community found primarily in California, southern Oregon, and northern Baja California. It is shaped by a Mediterranean climate (mild wet winters and hot dry summers) and infrequent, high-intens ...

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

soils among

chamise ''Adenostoma fasciculatum'', commonly known as chamise or greasewood, is a flowering plant native to California and Baja California. This shrub is one of the most widespread plants of the California chaparral ecoregion. Chamise produces a specia ...

(''Adenostoma fasciculatum''), Eastwood's manzanita (''Arctostaphylos glandulosa''), and chaparral whitethorn (''Ceanothus leucodermis''). This species once included several other species of ''Thermopsis'', but in 1994, the others were separated out and elevated to species status, and the name ''T. macrophylla'' was applied to this rare variety limited to the Santa Ynez Mountains.Jepson Manual: var. ''macrophylla''
/ref>Chen, C. J. (1994). Taxonomy of ''Thermopsis'' (Fabaceae) in North America. ''Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden'' 81:4 714-42.

Description

This is a

rhizomatous In botany and dendrology, a rhizome ( ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow hori ...

perennial herb growing up to tall and wide. It produces up to ten

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 each bearing up to 100 bright yellow flowers up to long each. The fruit is a

legume Legumes are plants in the pea family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seeds of such plants. When used as a dry grain for human consumption, the seeds are also called pulses. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consum ...

pod containing six to eight seeds. The seeds have very hard coats and must be scarified by fire until they reach if they are to

germinate Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or spore. The term is applied to the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an flowering plant, angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the sp ...

References

External links

''Thermopsis macrophylla'' — U.C. Photo gallery
Sophoreae Endemic flora of California Natural history of the California chaparral and woodlands Natural history of Santa Barbara County, California Natural history of the Transverse Ranges Santa Ynez Mountains Los Padres National Forest Critically endangered flora of California {{Sophoreae-stub