Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Herbaceous annuals, stems erect, to 50 cm tall, branching, herbage glabrous.

Leaves: Alternate, with 2 leaflets (bifoliate), leaflets linear, to 40 mm long and 1 mm wide, acute at the tips, surfaces densely punctate, glabrous, 1-nerved, stipules sagittate, punctate, glabrous, 5-nerved, petioles about half the length of the leaflets.

Flowers: Orange-yellow, with banner, wing, and keel petals (papilionaceous), banner suborbicular, 7-11 mm long, keel petal incurved, calyx tube with 5 unequal lobes, to 4 mm long, 10-nerved, strigose, punctate, stamens monadelphous, subtending bracts very different from the foliage leaves, paired, connivent, nearly enclosing the flower, linear, to 6 mm long and 1 mm wide, acute at the tips, punctate, glabrous to puberulent on the nerves, sometimes ciliate, 3-nerved, flowers borne in interrupted inflorescences, these in axillary or terminal spikes or solitary in leaf axils.

Fruits: Loment, flat, several-jointed with 4-6 sections (articles), each section 2-2.5 mm long, thick-walled, surfaces reticulate-veined and glabrous, eglandular, with retrorsely hairy bristles to 1 mm long. The fruits are often still enclosed by the showy, paire

Ecology: Found on dry soils on rocky slopes and mesas, from 4,000-6,000 ft (1219-1829 m); flowering August-October.

Distribution: Arizona only.

Notes: See also Zornia diphylla var. leptophylla (from Brazil) in Kearney and Peebles, who report Z. diphylla var. leptophylla has longer, narrower, and longer-acuminate leaflets, less prominently veined and more acuminate bracts, and less copious pubescence than Z. diphylla. Ecology data taken from Kearney and Peebles for Z. diphylla.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: The meaning of Zornia is unknown, while leptophylla means narrow-leaved.

Synonyms: Zornia diphylla var. leptophylla

Editor: LCrumbacher 2012