Pithecellobium keyense

Pithecellobium keyense, the Florida Keys blackbead, is a shrub or small tree of the legume family reaching about 2 to 6 m, often forming a rounded, dense crown with crooked branches armed with small stipular spines. The leaves are bipinnate but reduced, bearing one or two pairs of asymmetric, leathery, dark green leaflets. The fragrant flowers are small, with conspicuous tufts of long white to pinkish stamens borne in rounded heads. The fruit is a curved or coiled reddish pod that splits to reveal shiny black seeds, each partly covered by a fleshy red aril, hence the name blackbead. It grows in coastal hammocks, scrub and rocky pinelands of southern Florida and the Florida Keys, and is also native to the Bahamas, Cuba, Mexico and Central America, tolerating salt spray and thin limestone soils.