Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Desmodium varians
Common name
Slender tick-trefoil
Family
Fabaceae
Where found
Forest, woodland, and grassy areas. Widespread.
Notes
Perennial herb, prostrate, sprawling, or twining, to 0.5m high. Stems hairless to sparsely hairy or slightly sticky. Leaves alternating up the stems, compound, with 3 leaflets, each 0.5-4 cm long, 5–20 mm wide, hairless to sparsely hairy, tips blunt to pointed. Young leaves often hairy and red brown. Leaflets often of two shapes, the leaflets of the lower leaves broadly oval to round, with blunt tips; leaflets of the upper leaves more or less oblong, usually with pointed tips. Stalk of the terminal leaflet 2-4.5 mm long. Flowers 4-6 mm long, pea-shaped, purplish to pink, white or yellowish, with 5 petals, 2 joined together to form the keel. Flowers in groups of 1-3 in racemes to about 25 cm long of 4-60 flowers. Flowers often self-pollinate without opening. Flowers almost all year.
When it occurs together with Desmodium gunnii in coastal areas, Desmodium varians occurs in drier situations.
All species of Desmodium in the area have hooked hairs on the transversely jointed pods, which break up on maturity into separate one-seeded sections.
All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.
Data deficient Vic.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Desmodium~varians (accessed 30 April 2021)
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