Various products from the trees are in use in many countries—forage from leaves, honey and perfume from the flowers, tannin from the bark and fruit, ink from the fruit, and medicinal products from nearly every part. In Southern Texas it is highly valued as a honey crop, the flowers blooming from February to April as a rule, but occasionally as early as December.
Mesquite (_Prosopis juliflora glandulosa_) is found on prairies throughout the state but grows luxuriantly in the southwestern part. In moister regions it is a graceful tree with lacy yellow-green leaves and is armed with stout, vicious spines over an inch long, but in the drier regions it is a spreading shrub with large underground roots which Mexicans dig up for fuel. Spikes of greenish-white or cream flowers appear at intervals during the warm months. Long beans, 4-8 in. long, soon turning pale yellow, mature in a few weeks. The leaves have 2 or 4 widely spreading divisions and commonly bear 6-15 pairs of leaflets about 1 in. long.
Like the huisache, the mesquite has many uses. The beans are edible, the pulp containing 25-30 per cent grape sugar. The Indians used the beans for a food, first grinding them into meal in holes in the rocks. They form a valuable stock food in Hawaii, where the trees have been introduced. The wood is hard and takes an excellent polish, but is chiefly used for fence-posts, railroad ties, fuel, and paving blocks. The honey produced from the flowers is not so good as huisache honey nor is so much produced.
Pink Sensitive Briar (_Leptoglottis uncinata_) is also called pink mimosa and shame-vine, the latter name being given because of the leaf’s habit of closing when touched. The vines sprawl on the ground, growing out 2-4 ft. They are densely covered with small, recurved prickles. The leaves are divided as in other mimosas, having 4-8 pairs of divisions each bearing 8-15 pairs of short leaflets. The small, fragrant pink flowers are borne in dense heads. The pods are nearly round, densely covered with spines, and about 1½ in. long. It grows in dry soil from Virginia to Mexico, blooming in Texas in April and May.
Yellow Sensitive Briar (_Neptunia lutea_) is very much like the pink briar but has oblong heads of yellow flowers. The pods are smooth and flat and markedly narrowed at the base. The yellow briar grows in sandy soil from Oklahoma and Texas to Florida, blooming in June.