Japanese name: アメリカヌスビトハギ Scientific name:Desmodium obtusum
[Overview]
A perennial 50–150 cm tall, found along roadsides and in vacant lots.
The whole plant is covered with hooked hairs.
The leaves are alternate and trifoliate; the leaflets are ovate-elliptic to narrowly ovate, 4–8 cm long and up to 2.5 cm wide, often with fine hooked hairs on the upper surface and dense silky hairs on the underside.
Racemes emerge from the stem tips and leaf axils and bear small pea-shaped flowers 4–6 mm long, with flower color from pale reddish purple to white.
There is a green spot at the base of the standard petal.
The fruit is flat and constricted into 1–3 segments, each segment triangular.
The fruit surface is covered with fine hooked hairs, and it is carried away by sticking to clothing and animals.
[History]
It was first collected in Osaka in 1940.
