Robinia luxurians (Dieck) Schneid.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Robinia luxurians' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/robinia/robinia-luxurians/). Accessed 2024-03-28.

Genus

Synonyms

  • R. neomexicana var. luxurians Dieck
  • R. neomexicana sens . some authors, not A. Gray

Glossary

calyx
(pl. calyces) Outer whorl of the perianth. Composed of several sepals.
glandular
Bearing glands.
hybrid
Plant originating from the cross-fertilisation of genetically distinct individuals (e.g. two species or two subspecies).
ovate
Egg-shaped; broadest towards the stem.
imparipinnate
Odd-pinnate; (of a compound leaf) with a central rachis and an uneven number of leaflets due to the presence of a terminal leaflet. (Cf. paripinnate.)
standard petal
(in the flowers of some legumes) Large upper petal; also known as ‘vexillum’.
viscid
Sticky.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Robinia luxurians' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/robinia/robinia-luxurians/). Accessed 2024-03-28.

A deciduous shrub or small tree 20 to 40 ft high, with a trunk 12 in. or more thick; branchlets downy. Leaves pinnate, 6 to 12 in. long, with downy stalks; leaflets fifteen to twenty-five, oval to slightly ovate, 1 to 134 in. long, 12 to 23 in. wide, with a bristle-like tip; stipules spiny, ultimately 1 in. long. Racemes 2 to 3 in. long, 2 in. wide, the stalk covered with brown shaggy hairs. Flowers 34 to 1 in. long, pale rose, each on a hairy stalk 14 in. long; the standard petal large, the calyx glandular, shaggy, with slender teeth. Pods 3 or 4 in. long, 13 in. wide, covered with gland-tipped bristles 18 in. or more long. Bot. Mag., t. 7726.

Native of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and S. Utah, in places at 7,000 ft above sea-level. First discovered by Dr Thurber in 1851; introduced to Kew in 1887. It flowers prettily every year in June, and frequently a second time in August. It differs from R. pseudacacia in its bristly pods, and from R. viscosa in the young twigs not being viscid. The larger of two examples at Kew measures 50 × 6 ft (1968).

R. luxurians was at one time confused with R. neomexicana A. Gray, a related species from New Mexico, which makes a shrub to about 6 ft high; its leaves have not more than fifteen leaflets and its pods are hairy but not glandular-bristly.

From the Supplement (Vol. V)

The specimen at Kew, probably from the original introduction of 1887, measures 70 × 514 ft (1981). In the University Botanic Garden, Cambridge, pl. 1958, it is 48 × 334 ft (1982).

R. × holdtii – Mr Bean’s statement that this hybrid grows as vigorously as R. pseudoacacia ought to have been amended. Two specimens in the Kew collection, over eighty years planted, measure only 48 × 334 ft and 52 × 234 ft (1981). The cultivar ‘Britzensis’, however, planted at Borde Hill, Sussex, in the 1930s, has reached 62 × 414 ft (1984).


R × holdtii Beissn

A hybrid between R. luxurians and R. pseudacacia whose racemes are looser and longer than in R. luxurians and the flowers of a paler colour. The keel and wing-petals are almost white, the standard pale red with white markings. Habit and vigour of growth similar to those of R. pseudacacia. Pod rather glandular. Obtained by Mr Von Holdt, Alcott, Colorado, and put into commerce about 1902.The same hybrid was raised in Späth’s nurseries, Berlin, in 1893 from seeds of R. luxurians. This clone, named ‘Britzensis’, is very near to R. pseudacacia in its flowers, but the pods are glandular. The tree named R. coloradensis by Dode was one of six raised by Vilmorin at Les Barres from seeds collected by E. L. Berthoud at Golden, Colorado, probably from a tree of R. × holdtii. Another of the seedlings is described in Fruticetum Vilmorinianum (1904), p. 54, as ‘R. neomexicana var.?’.