Baguenaudier

The baguenaudier , or arborescent baguenaudier ( Colutea arborescens ), is a shrub of the family of the Fabacées (or Leguminous plants) spectacular by its fruits, pods brown reddish which swell with maturity and become translucent. From where the popular name of tree with bladders which is sometimes given to him. The seeds have purgative virtues which are worth also the name to him of bastard senna. The flowers, yellows, are papilionacées. Two subspecies are distinguished:

subsp. arborescens
subsp. gallica

Description

Ecology and habitat

Shrub enough running in the Mediterranean Scrubland S (Calcareous ground ), especially on the floor collinéen, present also in mountain up to 1500 meters. It is rarer in the France and Western rest of Europe, where one can meet it on the sunny slopes of the East, the Massif Central and the Center. Elsewhere, it is naturalized or subspontané.

Flowering: May at July
Pollination: entomogame
Dissemination: barochore

General and vegetative morphology

Very ramified shrub, being able to reach three meters, generally much smaller (0,5 to 1 m). Sheet S imparipennées comprising from seven to thirteen oval or elliptic leaflets with many veins.

Floral morphology

Fleur S grouped into small Racème S (seldom more than five flowers by inflorescence). Small chalice tubulé with five teeth. yellow Corolla papilionacée, with a largely deployed standard, often carrying at its base two spots with brownish contour. Short wings surrounding a hull in ascending nozzle.

Fruit and seeds

The Fruit S are Gousse S from 5 to 7 cm, which swell and become translucent with maturity, passing from the yellowish green to the brown-red.

References

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