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Stylosanthes guianensis
Also called Pencil Flower
Stylo is a perennial legume subshrub from the New World tropics, grown mainly as a forage and fodder crop for livestock and as a soil-improving cover in pastures. It thrives in warm, seasonally dry conditions and tolerates poor soils.
Stylosanthes guianensis, the stylo, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae. It is native to the New World Tropics and Subtropics, and has been introduced to Puerto Rico, the Windward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, most of Sub‑Saharan Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius, Réunion, Rodrigues, the Indian Subcontinent, Sri Lanka, Thailand, southeast China, Hainan, Taiwan, New Guinea, Queensland, New Caledonia, and the Cook Islands. An important forage and fodder species, its palatability to livestock increases as the plant matures, making it an unusual, and valuable, deferred feed. It has high genetic diversity between and among its named varieties.
Shrubby pencilflower · Cheesytoes · Townsville stylo · Pencilflower · Pencilflower
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Stylosanthes guianensis 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.
