Texas-mountain-laurel

Dermatophyllum secundiflorum (Ortega) Gandhi & Reveal (Fabaceae), Texas mountain laurel or mescal bean, is an evergreen shrub or small tree of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, occurring on limestone slopes and canyon edges of central and west Texas, southern New Mexico and northeastern Mexico. Plants reach 2-10 m tall, with smooth grey bark and dense, glossy, dark green pinnately compound leaves 10-15 cm long bearing 7-9 oblong, leathery leaflets with rounded apices. In early spring, dense pendulous racemes 5-12 cm long bear numerous fragrant violet-purple pea-flowers strongly scented of grape soda. The woody, constricted, silvery-pubescent pod is 2.5-10 cm long and contains one to several brilliant orange-red seeds about 1-1.5 cm across. All parts, especially the seeds, contain cytisine and related alkaloids and are highly toxic to humans and livestock.