Silverbush

Sophora tomentosa, known as silverbush or yellow necklacepod, is an evergreen coastal shrub in the Fabaceae family, widely distributed across tropical and subtropical seashores of the Americas, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and the Pacific. It typically grows 1 to 3 metres tall with spreading, ascending branches densely covered in a silvery-grey to whitish, velvety tomentum that gives the plant its common name and provides protection against salt spray and intense sun. The alternate, pinnately compound leaves are 10 to 25 centimetres long, bearing 11 to 21 elliptic to broadly ovate leaflets, each 2 to 5 centimetres long, with a soft felted underside. The inflorescences are erect terminal racemes 15 to 40 centimetres long bearing many bright yellow pea-shaped flowers about 2 centimetres long, attractive to butterflies and birds. The fruits are conspicuous, slender, indehiscent legumes 5 to 15 centimetres long, strongly constricted between the seeds, forming a chain or necklace of bead-like segments that turn dark brown when ripe; the seeds contain toxic quinolizidine alkaloids.