Botanical name: Ototropis elegans    Family: Fabaceae (Pea family)
Synonyms: Desmodium elegans, Hedysarum nutans

Elegant Desmodium is a deciduous shrub, 1.8-3 m tall, with trifoliate leaves and with up to 30 cm long spike-like clusters of pink to dark purple flowers. Flowers are 7-13 mm, shaped like pea flowers, borne on slender stalks. Standard petal is rounded. Sepal cup is 2-3 mm, with blunt sepals, shaggy-haired. Leaflets are rounded to obovate, mostly 2-4 cm, paler and hairy underneath. The middle leaflet is long-stalked. Pods are 3-6 cm long, by 6 mm broad, the lower, margin prominently indented between the seeds. Elegant Desmodium is commonly found in the Himalayas, from Afgahnistan to SW China, at altitudes of 1200-3000 m. Flowering: June-September.

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The flower labeled Elegant Desmodium is ...