Desmodium scorpiurus (Flora of the WAP complex

Desmodium scorpiurus

Diagnostic ¹

"Slender, trailing, pubescent herbs up to 1.5 m long; stem sub-terete, clothed with minute hooked hairs; branches few. Leaves alternate, pinnately trifoliate; rachis 1.7-6.5 cm x 1-2 mm, minutely hooked hairy; leaflets subsessile, elliptic to ovate, obtuse at apex, entire, the terminal leaflet often larger, to 1.6-5.5 x 1-3 cm; stipules persistent, connate, amplexicaul, striate, auriculate at the base, acuminate at apex, pubescent and ciliate; stipels to 2 mm long, subulate, pubescent. Inflorescent racemose, 5-15 cm long, minutely pubescent, leaf-opposed, 12-22- flowered. Flowers to 5.5 x 4 mm, solitary or in clusters of 2-3 at nodes; pedicels 4-5 mm long, filiform, patent hairy. Calyx hairy, to 3 mm long, campanulate with a short tube below; lobes 5, to 2.6 mm long, the two upper connate for most part except at the 2-toothed apex, others linear-lanceolate, the lower slightly larger. Petals pink or white turning to pale yellow; standard broadly obovate, 4 mm, slightly emarginated at apex, cuneate at the base; wings sub-elliptic, to 3.5 x 2 mm, rounded at apex, slightly auriculate and shortly clawed at the base; keels longer than the wings, to 4 x 1 mm, clawed, truncate or retuse at the apex, base with a thin lamellate appendage. Stamens diadelphous; staminal column to 3.5 mm long, closely set with minute, hooked hairs. Style to 1 mm long, bent, glabrous; stigma capitate, glabrous. Pod linear, slightly turgid, intended on both the sutures, to 3.3 x 3.3 cm, densely hooked hairy, 4-7 jointed; seeds oblong, subturgid, 3 x 1.3 mm, brown, smooth."

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