绛车轴草 jiang che zhou cao

Annual herbs, pubescent. Stems erect or ascending, 30-100 cm, simple to sparingly branched, striate. Leaves palmately 3-foliolate, long petiolate in lower leaves, shortly petiolate in upper leaves; stipules dark green to purple, elliptic, connate and adnate to petiole for ca. 3/4 their length, membranous, veins 3-5, base sheathing, apex broadly triangular or rounded; leaflets broadly obovate to suborbicular, 1.5-3.5 cm, lateral veins 5-10, base cuneate, margins irregularly crenate, apex retuse to obtuse. Flowers 50-80(-120), in dense, cylindric, terminal heads, 3-6 × 1-1.5 cm; peduncle 2.5-7 cm, stout. Calyx densely hirsute, veins 10; teeth subulate, longer than or equal to tube. Corolla red, pink, or white, 10-15 mm; standard narrowly elliptic, acute. Ovary oblate. Legume ovoid. Seed 1, greenish brown, ovoid. Fl. and fr. May-Jul.

Cultivated as an adaptable forage crop with hopeful prospects in China, escaped. Hebei, Jiangsu, Shaanxi, Shandong [native to Mediter­ranean region].