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Lespedeza juncea Pers.

Modern name

Lespedeza juncea (L.f.) Pers.

A semi-woody plant in this country, sending up annually from a woody root-stock a crowd of slender, grooved stems 2 to 3 ft high, clad with whitish hairs. Leaves trifoliolate, with a slender main-stalk 14 to 12 in. long; leaflets oblanceolate, 13 to 34 in. long, broadest near the apex, where they are 112 to 18 in. wide and short-pointed, tapering thence to a short stalk, covered beneath with fine grey hairs. Flowers in very short-stalked, two- to six-flowered umbels, produced from the leaf-axils; each flower 14 to 13 in. long, white or partly blue; the calyx half as long, hairy, with slender, linear lobes.

Native of the Himalaya, China, Japan, and Siberia; introduced to Kew in 1895. It is not a showy plant, but distinct and striking for its long slender stems of rather broom-like appearance, very densely clothed with the erect, rather appressed leaves. It flowers in September.

L. sericea (Thunb.) Miq., not L. sericea (Wall.) Benth., nom. nud. Hedysarum sericeum Thunb.; L. cuneata (Dum.-Cours.) G. Don; Anthyllis cuneata Dum.-Cours.; L. juncea var. cuneata (Dum.-Cours.) Bean – Leaflets narrowly oblanceolate, 38 to 78 in. long, truncate or retuse at the apex. Flowers whitish. Of no decorative value, but used as a fodder plant in the warmer parts of the world.


Genus

Lespedeza

Other species in the genus