Al Schneider's Rocky Mountains Plant Descriptions

Rocky Mountain Beeplant
Cleomella serrulata
Bee-Plant family (Cleomaceae)

Attractive pink flowers, with long , attract bees and other pollinators, as its common name suggests. The plant was named by Frederick Pursh in 1814 from a collection made by Meriwether Lewis: "August 25, 1804, growth of the open Prairies" near Vermillion, South Dakota. "Serrulata" means "fine ." Plant is said to have kept both Native Americans and settlers from starvation with flour made from its seeds.


©2009 Russ Kleinman, Western New Mexico
University Department of Natural Sciences and the
Dale A. Zimmerman Herbarium

Description

, 10-36" tall, freely-branching from taproots. , , divided into 3 , longer than . Flowers are pink-purple leafy clusters () with individual flowers 4-parted and -shaped, at ends of branches. Six conspicuous protrude beyond the petals. Clusters continue to during growing season. are cylindrical pods, tapered at both ends.

Field Marks

Cluster of pink flowers with long , leaves, and green pods tapered at both ends.

© Al Schneider

stamen -- the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower; The stamen consists of an anther supported by a filament.

linear -- Long and very narrow like a blade of grass.

trifoliate -- Divided into three leaflets. Like a clover leaf.

leaflets -- Each little leaf-like thing in a compound leaf is a leaflet.

An annual plant is a plant that completes its life cycle, from germination to the production of seed, within one year, and then dies.

cross -- To make something interbreed. The act of hybridization.

Like the teeth on a saw, leaves and other surfaces can have toothed edges.

fruit -- any seed-bearing structure in flowering plants. It is formed from the ovary after flowering.

leaves alternate along the main stem and are attached singly.

elongate -- long and thin, slender.

petiole -- the stalk of a leaf.

A raceme is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along its axis.

lanceolate -- Lance-shaped. Long, wider in the middle.