Mesquite

Indigenous to West Indies and Mexico, widely naturalized in Sind and Punjab.

It is good firewood and excellent for making charcoal. It is also used for fence posts.

A large shrub or tree, c. 5 m tall, generally armed with stipular spines. Leaves alternate, bipinnate, with 1-3 pairs of pinnae, rachis 1-8 cm long, prolonged beyond the last pinnae as a soft bristle. Leaflets 10-20 pairs, 7-17 mm long, 2-3 mm broad, entire, oblong, obtuse, sometimes mucronate. Stipules spiny, generally 1.0 cm or less long, in pair. Inflorescence dense axillary pedunculate spikes 4-8.5 cm long, peduncle c. 6-12 mm long. Flowers greenish yellow, pedicel 1 mm. Calyx c. 1 mm long, cup-shaped, 5 toothed, teeth small. Petals 5, free, c. 3 mm long, tip and margin hairy. Stamens 10, free, exserted, c. 4 mm long, anthers tipped with deciduous glands. Pod pedicellate, c. 16-23 cm long, c. 10-12 mm broad, almost straight to semi-circular, light yellow, glabrous, pedicel c. 5-7 mm long. Seeds 10-18, oblong.

Fl. Per. March June.