Desmodium scorpiurus - Scorpion Tick Trefoil

Scorpion Tick Trefoil is a creeping herb, with hooked hairs and tiny flowers. It generally creeps over other plants to about 60 cm in height, using the hooked hairs as a climbing aid. The name referring to the scorpion-like shape of the pods. The leaves are trifoliate, alternate, spiral, stipulate, petiolate, with the petiole 2-4 cm long; the leaflet blade is 2.5-4.3 cm long, 1.2-3 cm wide, elliptic, the base rounded, the margins entire, the apex obtuse or retuse; the blade is hairy. The flowers are borne in racemes; they are predominantly white or pink or purple, very irregular, pedicellate, the pedicel 50-7 mm long, the perianth 2-whorled; the calyx is 2-3 mm long, with 5 sepals, all the sepals joined. The corolla is to 4 mm long, with 5 petals, some petals joined. There are 10 stamens, free of the perianth, both opposite and alternating with the corolla parts, coherent to each other. Scorpion Tick Trefoil is a native of tropical America, the West Indies, and south to Peru. Flowering: July-October.