垂果山蚂蝗 chui guo shan ma huang

Desmodium pendenticarpum C. Z. Gao & Q. R. Lai, Bull. Bot. Res., Harbin 9(4): 41. 1989.

Subshrubs, prostrate or ascending, to 1 m tall. Young branchlets white adpressed villous. Leaves 3-foliolate; petiole 0.7-1.8 cm, villous; leaflet blade elliptic, narrowly elliptic, or obovate-elliptic, 1.7-4 × 1.1-2 cm, abaxially densely white vil­lous, adaxially glabrous, base broadly cuneate or rounded, apex rounded or obtuse. Racemes terminal, 2.5-7.5 cm; rachis vil­lous, densely flowered. Pedicel 2.5-3 mm. Calyx ca. 2 mm. Corolla purple, ca. 6 mm; standard broadly ovate-orbicular or orbicular; wings auriculate at base; keel nearly spatulate, curved. Legume pendent, 0.9-2 cm × ca. 2 mm, adpressed gray-white villous, conferted, lower suture undulate, upper suture straight, 3-8-jointed. Fl. Aug, fr. Oct.

● Mountain slopes; ca. 100 m. S Guangxi.

One of us (Huang) treats this taxon as a variety of Desmodium strigillosum on account of the difference in indumentum of the branch­lets, legumes, petioles, and abaxial surface of the leaflets, as well as the difference in corolla color between both taxa. However, one of us (Ohashi) prefers to treat Desmodium pendenticarpum as a synonym of D. strigillosum (see J. Jap. Bot. 70: 115. 1995).

The typical variety occurs in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myan­mar, and Vietnam, and is introduced in Australia. It is an erect shrub or subshrub, to 60 cm tall, with branchlets, petioles, and leaflets abaxially densely appressed gray or silver silky hairy; rachis of the inflorescence with dense appressed white or silver silky hairs, intermixed with hooked hairs; corolla blue; and legume densely minutely hooked hairy and long straight white hairy.