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Stylosanthes hamata
Also called Caribbean Stylo, Common Pencil Flower, Sweet Weed, Wild Clover
Cheesytoes (Stylosanthes hamata) is an annual or short-lived legume from the Caribbean and nearby mainland areas, grown mainly as a drought-tolerant forage and pasture plant. It thrives in warm, seasonally dry conditions with full sun.
Stylosanthes hamata, the Caribbean stylo, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae. It is native to the islands of the Caribbean, and nearby areas on the mainland; Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Venezuela, and it has been introduced as a forage crop to Florida, Peru, Brazil, the Gambia, Burkina Faso, Benin, India, Thailand, Hainan, and northern Australia. There are diploid and tetraploid cultivars, with the tetraploids being more drought tolerant and more frequently sown for pasture.
Shrubby pencilflower · Stylo · Townsville stylo · Pencilflower · Pencilflower
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Stylosanthes hamata 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.
