Scientific Name: Desmodium intortum
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Common Name:Green-leaf Desmodium
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Type:
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Family:FABACEAE
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Status:WEED This introduced plant has escaped into local bushland. Without natural predators to keep it in check, it is out-competing native species.
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Flowers:pink/blue
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Species List:Cranks Creek, weeds
Comments
Origin: Native from Mexico to Ecuador.||Notes: Introduced as a pasture species. Often naturalised alongside roads in coastal areas of northern NSW and south-eastern Queensland.
Identification Notes
Flowers/Seedhead: In terminal or axillary racemes to 30 cm long. Calyx 4-lobed, upper lobe divided into two. Flowers mainly summer and autumn.||Description: Prostrate to scrambling herb with stems to 2 m long. Leaf stalk 2–5.5 cm long. Seedpod flattened, 1–3 cm long, 0.15–0.3 cm wide, with 3–10 seeds.||Distinguishing features: Distinguished by stems with dense to sparse straight and hooked hairs; leaves with three leaflets, leaflets elliptic to ovate 2–12 cm long, 1–7 cm wide, uniformly green above, the central leaflet on a longer stalk than the other two, both surfaces with few to many hairs, stipule-like organs (stipels) at the base of each leaflet; flowers pea-like, pink to blue or white, about 10 mm long; seedpod covered with hooked hairs and separating into 1-seeded sections which do not open at maturity.||Dispersal: Spread by seed.|| References: Flora of NSW. G. Harden (ed), Vol. 2 (revised), 2002, pages 575–578. A Guide to Herbaceous and Shrub Legumes of Queensland. J. Hacker, 1990, pages 134–148.
Landscaping Notes
CONTROL METHODS: