Sessile Tick-Trefoil

(Desmodium sessilifolium)

 

   

 

 

Color Photograph: Larry Allain, U.S. Geological Survey

Line Drawing: Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada, Second Edition.

 

 

Sessile Tick-Trefoil (Desmodium sessilifolium [Torr.] Torr. and Gray)

Identification: Plant erect. Flowers pink to lavender, pealike. Lower petals elongate and projecting outward. Seedpods jointed with 1 to 4 segments. Flowers sparsely placed on a long flower stalk arising from a leaf axil. Stem hairy. Leaves divided into 3 leaflets and petiole extremely short, hearly sessile with the stem. Each leaflet elongate, narrow. Plant 2 to 4 feet in height.

Distribution: Iowa and Michigan in the west to Ontario and Massachusetts in the east, southward to Florida and Texas.

Habitat: Sessile Tick-Trefoil is found on a variety of dry soils.

Flowering period: July to August.

Similar Species: The narrow leaflets are nearly distinctive. The leaflets of Stiff Tick-Trefoil are even narrower, have a distinct petiole, and are not sessile to the stem. The petiole of Panicled Tick-Trefoil is even longer and the flowers are on a panicle (branched flower stalk), not a raceme (unbranched)

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