Annual herb 30 cm - 0.6 m tall

Stem: prostrate, diffusely branched, grayish-hairy.

Leaves: opposite, pinnately compound, short-stalked, 3 - 6 cm long. Leaflets usually in pairs of four, about 1 cm long, oblong or elliptic, and hairy.

Flowers: on 1 - 3 cm long stalks, yellow, to 1 cm wide. Sepals awl-shaped. Ovary ten-chambered.

Fruit: dry, indehiscent, splitting into ten one-seeded sections, to 4 mm wide, egg-shaped, long-beaked, wrinkled, with tuber-like projections.

Similar species: No information at this time.

Flowering: June to September

Habitat and ecology: Introduced from farther southwest. Rare in the Chicago Region, and apparently no longer part of the flora here. It is known only from a specimen collected in 1881 along a railroad in Cook County, Illinois.

Occurence in the Chicago region: non-native

Etymology: Kallstroemia is named after Kallstroem, a contemporary of Scopali. Parviflora means "small flowers."

Author: The Morton Arboretum

Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Annual herb with branches spreading to ascending, to 1 m long, striate, angled, sparingly hirsute with coarse hairs and usually strigose with smaller appressed hairs.

Leaves: Opposite and pinnate, 1-3 cm long, with 3-5 pairs of leaflets; leaflets 1-4 mm wide, 7-10 mm long, acute at both ends, hirsute beneath, glabrous above; stipules 6-7 mm long, linear-lanceolate, persistent.

Flowers: Yellow and solitary on pedicels from the leaf axils; pedicels 1-2 cm long at anthesis, extending to 4 cm long in fruit; sepals narrowly linear-lanceolate, about 5 mm long, hirsute, persistent in fruit; petals pale yellow, narrowly obovate to spatulate, 7-12 mm long, 2-4 mm wide.

Fruits: Capsule 5-6 mm wide, 4 mm high, minutely appressed-pubescent; splitting into 10 carpels, the carpels bluntly tuberculate on backs; capsule topped with a beak 5-8 mm long, puberulent and columnar.

Ecology: Found on gentle slopes and flats from 1,000-5,000 ft (305-1524 m); flowers August-October.

Distribution: Across the southern half of the US from CA east to IL and south to s MEX.

Notes: Kallstroemia is a genus of prostrate, annual herbs with opposite, even-pinnate leaves; 5-petaled flowers on pedicels emerging from the leaf axils; and 10-lobed fruits that split into 10 reticulate nutlets at maturity. The style persists as a cap or beak on the top of the fruit until the fruit splits into nutlets. Sister genus Tribulus appears quite similar in growth form, but the fruits split into 5 spiny nutlets at maturity. Despite its specific epithet translating to "small flower," K. parviflora has larger flowers (petals 6-12 mm) than similar species K. hirsutissima and K. californica (both with petals 5 mm or less). K. parviflora is also distinguished by having orange-yellow flowers, and the beak of the fruit is longer than the nutlets, while the small-flowered species have yellow flowers and beaks shorter than the nutlets. A fourth Sonoran Desert species, K. grandiflora, also has orange flowers but they are much larger, with 2-3 cm petals and much larger beaks, 8-11 mm long.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Kallstroemia is named for Anders Kallstrom (1733-1812) a contemporary of Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, the author of the genus, while parviflora means small-flowered.

Synonyms: Kallstroemia intermedia

Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015, AHazelton 2015

Annual; stems 3-6 dm, finely pubescent with incurved ascending hairs and ±coarsely hirsute; lvs 3-6 cm, short-petioled; lfls usually 4 pairs, elliptic or oblong, pubescent; peduncles 1-3 cm; fls 1 cm wide; fr-body ovoid, strigose, 4 mm, the beak slightly longer. Disturbed dry places, often along railways; Ill. to Ariz., s. to Mex. and C. Amer. (K. intermedia)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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