| Dicotyledon | Literature for Desmodium tortuosum
Wagner et al., 1990, 1999. |
| Fabaceae -- The Pea Family | Bibliography |
| Desmodium tortuosum | |
Common name(s): tick clover, tick trefoil, Florida beggarweed |
| General Information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Distribution | Native to tropical and subtropical America, now widely naturalized in the Paleotropics.In the Hawaiian Islands, naturalized on Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Maui, Kaho`olawe, Hawai`i. | |
| Habit |
Erect herbs or subshrubs 5-20 dm tall; stems hooked pubescent. |
|
| Leaves |
Leaves trifoliolate, leaflets elliptic to ovate, terminal one 3-10 cm long, 1.5-5 cm wide, both surfaces appressed pubescent with minute hooked hairs, apex obtuse to acute, base cuneate to obtuse, petioles 1-5 cm long. |
|
| Flowers |
Flowers numerous in open, racemose inflorescences 3-8 cm long, occasionally these grouped into diffuse, paniculate inflorescences up to 25 cm long, rachis densely glandular pilose, less so with age, and puberulent with hooked hairs,
pedicels slender, 10-15 mm long; corolla pink to bluish purple, 5-6 mm long. |
|
| Fruit |
Pods stipitate, (3-)5-7-jointed, (1.5-)2-3 cm long, pubescent with hooked hairs, articles usually orbicular to broadly elliptic, 3-4.5 mm long, 3-3.5 mm wide. |
|
| Chromosomes |
2n = 22 |
|
