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Aeschynomene americana
Also called American Joint Vetch, Joint Vetch
Aeschynomene americana is a legume native to the Americas, grown as a forage crop and found as a weedy herb, often annual or short-lived perennial, up to 2 m tall. Its sensitive leaves fold when touched.
Aeschynomene americana is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae (legume) known by many common names, including shyleaf, forage aeschynomene, American joint vetch (United States and Australia), thornless mimosa (Sri Lanka), bastard sensitive plant (Jamaica), pega pega, pega ropa, antejuela, ronte, cujicillo, and dormilonga (Latin America). It is native to Central America, parts of South America, the West Indies, and Florida. It is now found in the US, in Australia and in South-East Asia.
This plant is an annual or perennial herb growing up to 2 meters tall. The leaves are up to 7 centimeters long and have several pairs of linear to oblong leaflets. The sensitive leaves fold up when touched. The inflorescence is a raceme of flowers each up to a centimeter long. The flowers range in color from white to pinkish, orange, or purplish.
Sola pith plant · Ambatch · Shrubby jointvetch · Indian jointvetch · Zigzag jointvetch · Virginia jointvetch · Jointvetch
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Aeschynomene americana by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
