11. Prosopis L. (mesquite)

About 45 species, North America to South America, Asia, Africa.

The mesquites are an economically and ecologically important group of plants (Simpson, 1977). The pods and seeds are sweet and nutritious and were perhaps the most important food for native peoples in the Southwest (Felger, 1977). The pods also are eaten by cattle and wildlife. Mesquite wood is used for furniture, fence posts, handicrafts, charcoal, and many other things (Rogers, 2000). The mesquites also are an important member of a variety of desert, grassland, and riverbank plant communities in western North America (and elsewhere in the New World). In historical times, these plants have become much more abundant in the arid Southwest within their original geographic range because of suppression of wildfires, overgrazing of the range, and dissemination of the seeds by cattle (Fisher, 1977). Although they provide shade for livestock and a food source once grasses and other herbaceous plants have dried up or been consumed by cattle, many ranchers have attempted to eradicate populations on their lands The species historically present in Missouri is the most abundant and widespread mesquite in the southwestern United States and adjacent Mexico.