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Spanish Tick Clover

Desmodium uncinatum

Also called Silverleaf Desmodium

Spanish Tick Clover
Photo: Macleay Grass Man, CC BY 2.0

Spanish tick clover is a low-growing, sprawling perennial legume grown mainly as livestock fodder, pasture and ground cover, and used as an intercrop for pest control. It is a tropical and subtropical plant that is invasive in parts of Australia and Hawaii.

Family
Fabaceae (Pea & bean family)
Grows as
Shrub
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Water regularly while establishing, then it tolerates periods of dry weather once roots are deep.
Soil
Well-drained soil, tolerates poor fertility and mildly acidic soils.
Temperature
18–30 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Easy
Native range
Mexico to S. Trop. America
Climate
seasonally dry tropical

About

Desmodium uncinatum, the silverleaf desmodium, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae, native to Latin America, and introduced as a fodder to various locales in Africa, India, New Guinea, Australia and Hawaii. Although chiefly a fodder, it can also be used for pasture, deferred feed, cut-and-carry, hay, ground cover, and mulch. It is considered invasive in Australia and Hawaii.

This species of Desmodium has also found use in the push-pull technology for pest management where it is grown as an intercrop between rows of a cereal crop to control stem-boring insects and fall armyworms. Together with D. intortum (greenleaf desmodium) they are the most common two intercrops of push-pull technology.

Other Desmodium plants

Showy ticktrefoil · Zarzabacoa comun · Greenleaf ticktrefoil · Scorpion ticktrefoil · Dixie ticktrefoil · Ticktrefoil

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Desmodium uncinatum 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.

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