Lespedeza

Of the fifty or more species belonging to this genus, not more than half a dozen are cultivated in gardens. Many are really semi-herbaceous, dying back to ground-level every winter, but sending up in spring from a woody root-stock a crowd of shoots which flower during late summer and autumn. Leaves trifoliolate; flowers pea-shaped; pods roundish, flat, one-seeded, and thus very distinct from the long, narrow, jointed several-seeded pods of desmodiums with which some lespedezas have been confounded, and which they resemble in mode of growth. The species mentioned in the following notes succeed in ordinary loamy soil in an open position. Where seeds are not available, the most woody ones may be increased by cuttings; others by division. (See under L. thunbergii.)