Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Perennial with decumbent to prostrate stems 30-60 cm, with densely villous herbage, tawny or slightly brownish hairs.

Leaves: Pinnate with distinct rachis, leaflets 3-7, linear-oblanceolate to cuneate-obovate, rounded and apiculate or acute at the apex, 8-15 mm long, 3-6 mm wide.

Flowers: Peduncles much exceeding leaves, 1-2.5 cm long, 1-4 flowered, often with 2 flowers, calyx villous, teeth sometimes longer than tube, corolla 9-12 mm long, yellow on face, suffused with salmon-pink on back.

Fruits: Pods densely villous, linear, 20-30 mm long, brown.

Ecology: Found on gravelly and rocky slopes from 4,000-6,000 ft (1219-1829 m); flowers March-May.

Distribution: s AZ, sw NM; south to n MEX.

Notes: Distinguished by being a decumbent or prostrate perennial; the plant copiously long-hairy all over, the hairs spreading or erect; the stalks below inflorescences (peduncles) longer than the leaves; the leaves pinnate but appear palmate and yellow flowers >9 mm which become red after fertilization. Similar to Lotus plebeius but with longer, spreading hairs on the leaves.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Acmispon comes from the Greek acme for point or hook, while greenei is named for Edward Lee Greene (1843-1915) an American plant collector.

Synonyms: Lotus greenei

Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015

Lotus greenei is a prostrate perennial that can at times form a groundcover in open dry soil and middle elevation. Lotus humistratus is more densely hairy, and the pods of Lotus humistratus are less than a centimeter long. Lotus wrightii and Lotus purshianus, our other common members of the genus [In the Gila Wilderness], are upright.