Home › L › Lespedeza (Named after D Lespedez once)

Lespedeza (Named after D Lespedez once)

(named after D. Lespedez, once Governor of Florida, and a great patron of botany). ORD. Leguminosae. This genus comprises about twenty-five species of annual or perennial herbs, shrubs, or sub-shrubs, distributed over North America, temperate Asia, the mountains of the East Indies, and the Archipelago, and also in Australia. Flowers purplish, rose or white, borne in axillary clusters or racemes, or terminal panicles; calyx lobes nearly equal, or the upper two shortly united; standard orbicular, obovate or oblong, narrowed into a claw; wings free; keel obtuse or beaked. Leaves pinnately trifoliolate, rarely one-foliolate; leaflets entire, exstipellate; stipules free. Several species have been introduced; but, except L. bicolor, they are but rarely seen in cultivation.

L. bicolor (two-coloured). fl. rosy-purple, numerously produced in long pendulous branched panicles. l. glabrous, with oblong leaflets. h. 4ft. to 6ft. North China and Japan. SYN. Desmodium penduliflorum. (B. M. 6602.) L. reticulata (netted). fl. violet; peduncles few-flowered. l., leaflets varying from oval-oblong to linear, whitish-downy beneath, with close-pressed pubescence. North America. There are several varieties, the principal of which are:

L. r. angustifolia (narrow-leaved). fl. closely clustered on straight branches. l. crowded; leaflets narrowly oblong or linear, often silky. L. r. divergens (diverging). fl. loosely panicled. l., leaflets oval or oblong.

L. r. sessiliflora (sessile-flowered). fl. principally on peduncles much shorter than the leaves.