Black Locust - Robinia pseudoacacia
Other Names:
False Acacia
Trees to 20 m with furrowed bark. Herbage glabrate to puberulent. Stems sometimes with nodal spines. Leaves petiolate, odd-pinnate with 9 to 17 ovate to narrowly elliptic leaflets 2–6 cm long with pubescent petiolules; stipules linear, early-deciduous. Inflorescence axillary, pendent, densely-flowered raceme 5–20 cm long. Flowers papilionaceous, white; calyx pubescent; sepals deltoid,1–3 mm long, lower 2 larger; banner 14–19 mm long with a yellow center, ca. as long as the wings and keel; stamens 9 united, 1 separate. Fruit a linear, glabrous legume flattened parallel to the sutures, 4–10 cm long, slightly indented between the seeds (
Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).
POLLINATORS The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap:
Bombus centralis,
Bombus fervidus,
Bombus pensylvanicus, and
Bombus griseocollis (Thorp et al. 1983, Colla and Dumesh 2010).