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Desmodium aparines
Desmodium intortum, known as greenleaf desmodium and also as beggarlice along with other members of its genus, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Desmodium, native to Mexico, Central America, northern South America, the Galápagos, Haiti and Jamaica. A nitrogen-fixing fodder crop, it has been introduced to the rest of the world's tropics, including Africa, India, Australia, New Guinea and Taiwan.
Desmodium intortum is used in push–pull agricultural pest management since it contains potent secondary metabolites that are released into the soil and aerially. Inter-cropped in maize and sorghum fields, it repels Chilo partellus, a stem-boring grass moth, and suppresses witchweeds, including Asiatic witchweed (Striga asiatica) and purple witchweed (S. hermonthica).
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Desmodium aparines in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 280498.