Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses - Dillen's tick-clover

DILLEN'S TICK-CLOVER

File Size: 39 KB

Desmodium perplexum B. G. Schub.

[=Desmodium paniculatum (L. ) DC. var. dillenii (J. Darl. ) Isley]

Morris County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 20-60 inches

Family: Fabaceae - Bean Family

Flowering Period: July, August, September

Stems:

Ascending to erect, usually branched above, sparsely to densely pilose, often also with minute hooked hairs.

Leaves:

Alternate, odd-pinnately compound, stipules narrowly lanceolate to linear, 1/12 to 1/4 inch long, less than 1/25 inch wide; petiole .6 to 2 inches; leaflets 3, ovate to broadly elliptic or lanceolate, base rounded to truncate, margins entire, tip obtuse to acute, surfaces sparsely to moderately spreading-pubescent, veins of lower surface not conspicuously raised; terminal leaflet 1.2 to 2.75 inches long, .4 to 1.6 inch wide; lateral leaflets .8 to 2.75 inches long, .4 to 1.6 inch wide.

Inflorescences:

Racemes, axillary and terminal, branched; axis pilose and with minute hooked hairs; bracts ovate, 1/16 to 1/12 inch.

Flowers:

Pedicels 1/6 to 1/3 inch; calyx cup-shaped, 1/8 to 1/6 inch; corolla papilionaceous, usually pink to lavender, .2 to .4 inch, often with lighter pair of spots at base of banner; stamens 10, united in two groups.

Fruits:

Loments straight, segments (2-)3-5, triangular to rhombic in outline, margins obtusely angled abaxially, rounded to obtusely angled adaxially, .2 to .27 inch by .14 to .27 inch. Seeds 1 per segment, tan, ca. 1/6 inch, smooth.

Habitat:

Floodplain, maple-basswood, oak-hickory, and post oak-black jack oak woodlands, thickets, tallgrass prairies, old fields, pastures, roadsides.

Distribution:

East 1/3 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Desmodium, like a chain, alluding to the jointed legumes, and perplexum alluding to its perplexing taxonomy. Identification of Desmodium species can be difficult without the mature loments.

Dillen's tick-clover flowers