I am more familiar with this little plant. It's flat on the ground and has the pretty little pea-like coral blooms. I suspect it is in the pea family, but I've never kept up with one enough to know whether it makes a bean-like pod or not, but it looks like a legume of some sort to me. This is a small plant. The blooms are 1/2" or less top to bottom. Foliage is gray green.
detail of bloom on the left; whole plant on the right - that's the toe of my boot on the left of the photo to give size perspective.


It wouldn't be very noticeable except for the eye-catching color of the blooms.

Indigofera miniata

http://www.sbs.utexas.edu/bio4...

http://www.wildflower.org/gall...

It is a pretty little plant. I have Indigofera tinctoria here. It is a softer pink than the Indigofera miniata and is more shrub-like.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Thank y'all! Now maybe I can read about how it fits into the scheme of things! For such a little, flat growing plant, it sure is noticeable when it's blooming .

@Moonhowl
Jean,
That photo in the link of Indigofera tinctoria sure looks a lot like vetch. Just looking at the photo I'd have probably mistaken it for that. A lot of the legumes match up pretty well in similar ways. Gets you to the right family, if not a specific member.

I went around fussing about the vetch growing under and around the live oak when we first moved here. The first time a friend visited the new to us house, he commented on the lovely Indigofera I had growing. I had pulled up and thrown a couple dozen plants on the burn pile.

I've heard it called Scarlet Pea and have seen it quite often, but it's not on my place.

Double post.

@Moonhowl

That fits the old saying "one person's trash is another person's treasure". I look at a plant that looks cool like the Indigofera miniata and wonder if it would adapt to growing in a pot or hanging basket. The color of the blooms might be temporary, but in this case the little gray green foliage is also attractive. Some of the wild things I've experimented with don't really adapt to taming very well and others do. I'm cautious to an extent, for fear they'll adapt far too well at the expense of other things. Some of them manage in wild, unfriendly conditions normally. There's always the possibility they'll take advantage of your hospitality when the conditions get too friendly.

Absolutely agree Donald...ya just can't be nice to some plants. Reminds me of the old proverb..If you allow the camel's nose in your tent you will soon be sleeping in the cold. (Give them and inch and they will take a mile).


edited because I do know how to spell, just can't type.

It's a lovely colour, and as mentioned is unusual for Fabaceae. It might make a good filler between other plants? I can't see it ever being a problem even if it does spread around, it looks to grow low on the ground.

I had an Indigofera heterantha which I grew from seed, it survived well until the dreaded 2010/11 very hard winter.