Mesquite seed pods - National Parks Gallery

Mesquite trees have long been used by native people of the southwest for food, medicine, beverages, glue, hair dye, firewood, construction material, and furniture making. The pods of the beans are very sweet and can be ground into flour.

Mesquite co-evolved with large herbivores such as mammoths, mastodons, and ground sloths, which ate the pods and dispersed them widely. When these Pleistocene animals became extinct, mesquites retreated to flood plains and washed where water and weathering scarified the seeds are aided in germination. The introduction of cattle helped to expand the range of mesquite once again.

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1916 - 2020

National Parks Gallery

https://npgallery.nps.gov/

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