Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Herbaceous annuals to perennials, stems prostrate to erect, to 70 cm tall, branching, herbage glabrous to pilose.

Leaves: Alternate,with 2 leaflets (bifoliolate), lower leaflets broadly lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, to 24 mm long and 12 mm wide, acute at the tips, upper leaflets lanceolate to linear, narrower than the upper leaflets, to 30 mm long and and 13 mm wide, surfaces punctate or not, glabrous to strigose or villous, stipules sagittate, 5-9 nerved, glabrous to villous, punctate or not, petioles half as long or as long as the leaflets.

Flowers: Orange-yellow, with banner, wing, and keel petals (papilionaceous), banner suborbicular, keel petal incurved, calyx tube with 5 unequal lobes, to 4 mm long, usually at least partly strigose, 7-10 nerved, stamens monadelphous, subtending bracts very different from the foliage leaves, paired, connivent, nearly enclosing the flower, lanceolate to lance-ovate, to 12 mm long and 8 mm wide, acute to acuminate at the tips, the auricle to 3.5 mm long, punctate or not, falcate, frequently notched at the base, glabrous to densely villous, 5-9 nerved, borne in crowded inflorescences these in axillary or terminal spikes or some of them solitary in leaf axils.

Fruits: Loment, flat, thick-walled, several-jointed, with 7-10 included or rarely slightly exserted sections, each section 2-2.5 mm long, surfaces reticulate and pilose to villous, eglandular. The fruits are often still enclosed by the showy, paired, subtending f

Ecology: Unknown

Distribution: Arizona, Texas.

Notes: The parent species are in Kearney and Peebles as Z. diphylla, but the proper varieties are not included. See also Z. diphylla var. reticulata or Z. glabra in other texts. Ecology data for this specific species is unknown, but a general idea may be taken from Kearney and Peebles, see Z. leptophylla or Z. diphylla var. leptophylla in this text. Good identifiers for this species are the loments with 5-7 sections and the calyx with 7-10 nerves.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: The meaning of Zornia is unknown, while reticulata means net-veined.

Synonyms: Many, see Tropicos

Editor: LCrumbacher 2012