Herbs annual. Stems erect or ascending, usually much branched, sometimes woody at base, 20–100 cm, puberulent or pubescent, glabrescent. Leaves unifoliolate; stipules 5–20 mm; petiole 2–8 mm; leaflet blades: proximals usually orbic­ulate, elliptic, or oblong, distals often lanceolate, 1–10 × 0.6–3 cm, base subcordate, apex acute to emarginate and mucronulate, abaxial surface finely puberulent, with some hairs on veins. Inflorescences 6–20-flowered, terminal or leaf-opposed, usually racemes, sometimes panicles, usually 5–15 cm. Pedicels 1–2 mm. Flowers: calyx 5–6 mm, tube 1.5–2 mm, lobes valvate at base, narrowly triangular, 3–4 mm, acuminate; corolla orange-buff to reddish violet or pink, 5–6 mm. Infructescences lax, internodes longer than 1/2 loment length. Loments subterete, oblong or linear, 10–25 × 2 mm, much longer than calyx, margins straight, not constricted between segments, uncinulate-puberulent; segments (2–)4–6(–8), broadly oblong or quadrate, 2.5–4 mm, lateral surfaces coarsely reticulate, obscurely sculpted, ridged between segments, puberulent; septa without internal cross partitions, except sometimes present at distal joints. Seeds brown, oblong, 2 × 1 mm. 2n = 16.

Phenology: Flowering Sep–Nov.
Habitat: Open pinelands and margins, roadsides, urban waste areas, lawns.
Elevation: 0–300 m.

Distribution

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Introduced; Ala., Fla., Ga., La., Miss., N.C., Tex., Asia, Africa, introduced also in Mexico, Australia.

Discussion

Alysicarpus ovalifolius is planted for forage and has become naturalized.

Alysicarpus ovalifolius has been regarded as distinct, dubious, or conspecific with A. vaginalis. B. Verdcourt (1971, 2000) accepted A. ovalifolius with some doubts. D. Isely (1998) treated A. ovalifolius as conspecific with A. vaginalis but recorded that most material from the United States trends towards the A. ovalifolius type. Y. Endo and H. Ohashi (1990) treated them as separate species based on distinctions in the loments; both are recognized in India (D. S. Pokle 2000, 2017). F. Adema (2003) noted a continuous variation from septate loments to non-septate ones among Malesian material of the A. vaginalis-ovalifolius complex and merged the two as A. vaginalis. A. Gholami et al. (2017) and K. Ohashi et al. (2018) suggested that A. ovalifolius is distinct from A. vaginalis based on results of the molecular phylogenetic analyses. Possible hybrids between A. ovalifolius and A. vaginalis were suggested by Verdcourt (1971, 2000).

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

None.