Tara spinosa
| Spiny holdback | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Rosids |
| Order: | Fabales |
| Family: | Fabaceae |
| Genus: | Tara |
| Species: | T. spinosa |
| Binomial name | |
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Tara spinosa (Feuillée ex Molina) Britton & Rose |
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| Synonyms | |
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Tara spinosa, commonly known as tara (Quechua), is a small leguminous tree or thorny shrub native to Peru.T. spinosa is cultivated as a source of tannins based on a galloylated quinic acid structure. This chemical structure has been confirmed also by LC-MS. It is also grown as an ornamental plant because of its large colorful flowers and pods.
Common names: Spiny holdback; tara, taya, algarroba tanino (Peru).
T. spinosa is in the Fabaceae family, the Caesalpinioideae subfamily, and Caesalpinieae tribe.
T. spinosa typically grows 2–5 m tall; its bark is dark gray with scattered prickles and hairy twigs. Leaves are alternate, evergreen, lacking stipules, bipinnate, and lacking petiolar and rachis glands. Leaves consist of three to 10 pairs of primary leaflets under 8 cm in length, and five to seven pairs of subsessile elliptic secondary leaflets, each about 1.5–4 cm long. Inflorescences are 15–20 cm long terminal racemes, many flowered and covered in tiny hairs. Flowers are yellow to orange with 6- to 7-mm petals; the lowest sepal is boat-shaped with many long marginal teeth; stamens are yellow, irregular in length and barely protruding. The fruit is a flat, oblong indehiscent pod, about 6–12 cm long and 2.5 cm wide, containing four to seven round black seeds, which redden when mature.
T. spinosa is native to Peru and can be found growing throughout northern, western and southern South America, from Venezuela to Argentina. It has been introduced in drier parts of Asia, the Middle East and Africa and has become naturalized in California. T. spinosa grows in the nearly rainless lomas or fog oases of the Peruvian coastal desert.
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Wikipedia