Mimosa dysocarpa
Velvetpod Mimosa
Family: Fabaceae
Deciduous, cat-claw thorned shrub, reaching proportions of about 5x5’ rarely 6’ tall. Bright pink, nectar-rich flowers appear summer, sometimes into fall followed by legume seed pods.
Grow in full to part sun, with moderate water, hardy to at least 15° F.
Flowers are attractive to numerous pollinators, including hummingbirds. Moth larval food plant for the cecrops eyed silkmoth (Automeris cecrops), geometer moths (family Geometridae), the mystifying black witch moth (Ascalapha odorata), the bizarre mesquite clearwing moth (Carmenta prosopis), various bagworm moths (family Psychidae). Butterfly larval food plant for the reakirt’s blue (Echinargus isola) and the mimosa yellow sulfur (Pyrisitia nise). Being a thorny plant, this species provides shelter for small animals and birds. Many ground feeding birds including Quail eat the seeds.
Mimosa dysocarpa on iNaturalist
Photo by Stephen Hale, SEINET
The genus name Mimosa is from modern Latin, apparently from Latin mimus ‘mime’—because famous members of this genus have leaves that respond to touch with movement, seemingly mimicing the sensitivity of an animal. The species epithet dysocarpa may be from the two Greek words “dys”, meaning “bad or with difficulty”, and “karpos” meaning “fruit”; together, likely a reference to its' fruit which has 4 sharp prickles. There are 628 species native to the Americas, from North Dakota to northern Argentina, and to eastern Africa as well as the Indian subcontinent and Indochina.
Found along arroyos and washes, from 3,500-6,500 ft. in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, south into Sonora where it is most common, and continuing south into Nayarit.