HERBACEOUS MIMOSA ( MIMOSA STRIGILLOSA) A NEW RECLAMATION SPECIES: IMPACTS ON MICROENVIRONMENT

摘要

Herbaceous mimosa is a 15 cm tall, prostrate, deciduous, perennial, native legume in the southeastern United States. The plant has great potential as a pioneer species for erosion control due to its ground cover density and ability to grow in a variety of soil and moisture conditions. It has been under a series of initial and advanced evaluations since 1981and was released by NRCS's East Texas Plant Materials Center in 1998. Evaluations on periodic soil moisture stress, water consumption, and soil pH tolerability have been reported elsewhere. This report examined the plant's impacts on soil microenvironment monitored between May 1993 and November 1994 at Nacogdoches, Texas. Surface temperatures under mimosa were found to be cooler in summer and warmer in winter with less fluctuation throughout the year than those of bare ground. The albedo of mimosa could be as much as 5% lower than that of bare ground in summer while there was no difference in winter. Lower values of albedo and surface temperature during the summer made mimosa's net radiation greater than that of bare ground. There were no differences between mimosa and bare ground in the soil temperature regimes 15 cm below the surface. Air temperatures should not be a direct substitute for surface temperatures but can be used to estimate soil temperatures in periodic regression models. The models are reasonably