Desert Legumes
This collection focuses on members of the pea family (Fabaceae) from warm desert and semi-arid regions around the world.
Purpose and scope of the collection
The pea family is an enormous group of annuals, perennials, shrubs, trees, and vines and the collection illustrates the importance of this variety to humans. Many are useful as food, such as peas and beans, while others provide timber, medicines, and a host of other products. All species bear seeds in pods (“legumes”) and many host colonies of bacteria on their roots that extract nitrogen from the air and convert it to soil nutrients useable by plants. The Fabaceae also includes many of the most common shrubs and trees suitable for landscape use in the Las Vegas Valley and adjacent parts of southern Nevada with similar climatic conditions. Cassias, mesquites, and acacias are familiar desert legumes seen in local urban landscapes (Sunset 1995).
The purpose of the Desert Legume Collection is to display as many species, cultivars, and varieties of the family Fabaceae as possible. The collection emphasizes species important to diverse ethnic groups living in the Las Vegas Valley (past and present). By including these useful species, the Desert Legume Collection complements the Southwestern Ethnobotany Collection.
The collection displays individual specimens in various landscape uses. The Arboretum may test new plants in partnership with commercial growers to monitor plant performance under standard growing conditions in the Las Vegas Valley.
Collection — specific interpretations of this policy and special
- Limit acquisition and management to species from the family Fabaceae.
- All trees should be accessioned as individuals. Outside the Core, accession individual trees when they are part of a limited population of the species on campus.
- Only a few individual shrubs of each species should be accessioned, but they should be from different parts of the campus.
- Emphasize plants adaptable to Climate Zone 11 (Medium to High Deserts of California and Southern Nevada as defined in the Sunset Western Garden Book). However, utilize microclimates found on campus to support as many genera and species as practical.
- Display specimens in a variety of landscape uses and styles.
- Plant native specimens in simulated natural groupings wherever possible. Otherwise, group specimens according to their planting and culture needs.
Programs supported by the collection
- UNLV Biology: BIO 120 Plants and People, BIO 122 Desert Plants, BIO 148 Natural History of the Desert Southwest, BIO 345 Urban Horticulture, BIO 422 Taxonomy of Vascular Plants, BIO 426 Plant Anatomy, BIO 442 Principles of Plant Physiology
- UNLV Landscape Architecture: AAL 246 Plant Materials, second through fifth-year design studios (AAL 284, AAL 286, AAL 384, AAL 386, AAL 484, AAL 486, AAL 494, AAL 496)
- CCSN Ornamental Horticulture: OH 103 Ornamental Plant Identification, OH 213B Drought Tolerant Landscape Plant Identification
Collection data
Type of collection: Geographic
Year established: 2003
Guidelines created: March 2006
Last revised: March 2006
Proposed by: 2003 Long Range Planning Committee
Location: n/a
Size: n/a
Amenities: n/a
Last inventoried: in progress
Number of species: n/a
Number of specimens: n/a
