#fabaceae

Day 29 of Avian August 2025, Birds of Hawaii, hosted by @cookiedoves: Palila (Loxioides bailleui)

The palila is a critically endangered Hawaiian honeycreeper found only on the upper slopes of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. Its survival is closely linked to the presence of māmane (Sophora chrysophylla). The palila’s main food source is the plant’s immature green seeds, though it also eats flowers, buds, young leaves, and nearby insects. Most animals avoid the māmane, as its seeds contain toxins that cause severe poisoning and can be lethal to livestock. The palila is one of the very few birds in the world known to rely on toxic seeds as a primary food source. Because the two species evolved together, the bird’s digestive system and liver metabolism are able to detoxify or tolerate the harmful alkaloids.

this week's #Paleostream was a Valentine's Day special where we drew fossil angiosperms!

this week we drew Florissantia (i drew F. quilchenensis), Lovellea, Leguminocarpum olmensis, and Sagaria

Ferdinando Cosentini (1769 – 1840) was an Italian professor of botany.

A lupine native to the western Med, but now a common weed in parts of Australia (such as my backyard) and southern Africa. It grows to about a meter and half tall, and dies off at the end of the season.

It was introduced to Australia as a hardy, nitrogen-fixing forage crop, despite being somewhat poisonous, and rapidly became a problem.

Acacia aphylla

Acacia is a very large genus in the Pea Family (Fabaceae), including both shrubs and trees, and many of them have yellow "puffball" flowers similar to those seen here. However, Acacia aphylla is very distinctive in having no leaves at all, relying on its bluish-green stems to carry out photosynthesis. It is usually less than 10 feet tall (3 m), and makes a striking silhouette with its spiky branches jutting upward. It comes from the west coast of Western Australia, a little northeast of Perth.

What are those puffballs on this tree? They're anthers! In these acacias from the Tanzania-Kenya border, the showy part of the flower isn't the petal, but the anther - and with lots of anthers crowded together from many different flowers in a "head", they look more like a cheerleader's pom-pom than the butterfly-like pea flowers many of us are used to seeing. These capitate flowers are common in the Mimosoid clade of the pea family, Fabaceae, as are stipular spines and compound leaves.