LITTLE-LEAF TICK-CLOVER
File Size: 28 KB
 
Desmodium ciliare   (Muhl. & Willd.) DC.
Linn County, Kansas
Perennial
Height: 16-40 inches
Family: Fabaceae - Bean Family
Flowering Period:   August, September
Stems: Ascending to erect, usually branched from base, usually densely pilose and uncinate-puberulent, sometimes primarily uncinate-puberulent.
Leaves: Alternate, odd-pinnately compound; stipules subulate, .08 to .24 inch long; petiole .04 to .6 inch; leaflets 3; leaflet blade ovate to elliptic or oblong, base rounded to truncate or acute, apex obtuse, mucronate, margins entire, surfaces pilose and puberulent, usually less so abaxially, veins of abaxial surface conspicuously raised; terminal leaflet .4 to 1.2 inch long, .2 to .7 inch wide; lateral leaflets .3 to 1 inch long, .12 to .55 inch wide.
Inflorescences: Racemes, mostly terminal, simple or branched; axis uncinate-puberulent and sometimes also pilose; bracts ovate, .04 to .12 inch. Pedicels .08 to .3 inch.
Flowers: Papilionaceous; calyx cup-shaped, .08 to .12 inch; corolla pink or white with lighter pair of spots at base of banner, .12 to .2 inch; stamens 10, diadelphous; style glabrous.
Fruits: Loments, curved downward; segments 1-3, elliptic in outline, margins rounded abaxially, slightly convex adaxially, .14 to .22 inch long, .1 to .16 inch wide; stipe .04 to .07 inch; seeds 1 per segment, flattened, .1 to .13 inch, smooth
Habitat: Sandy or rocky oak-hickory and post oak-black jack oak woodlands, glades
Distribution: South half of the east 1/5 of Kansas
Origin: Native
Forage Value: Bobwhite quail will eat the seeds of Desmodium species.
Comments: The seeds are distributed when the loments cling to passing animals. Desmodium, like a chain, alluding to the jointed legumes and ciliare, eyelid, alluding to hair-like processes along the margins.

Little-leaf tick-clover flower
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Linn County, Kansas
Little-leaf tick-clover flower
37 KB
Linn County, Kansas
Little-leaf tick-clover fruit
37 KB
Linn County, Kansas
Little-leaf tick-clover leaves
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Linn County, Kansas
Little-leaf tick-clover leaves
55 KB
Linn County, Kansas