Desmodium ciliare(Muhl. ex Willd.) DC.

hairy small-leaf ticktrefoil

WFO wfo-0000209832 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Desmodium ciliare, photographed by Becky Dill
fig. a Becky Dill, CC0 1.0 / 2021-09-20 / obs. 158749652
Desmodium ciliare, photographed by Tom Field
fig. b Tom Field, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 156462657
Desmodium ciliare, photographed by Lindsey G.
fig. c Lindsey G., CC BY 4.0 / obs. 155891179
Desmodium ciliare, photographed by Elias
fig. d Elias, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 150706068
Desmodium ciliare, photographed by Matt Pelikan
fig. e Matt Pelikan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 144924127
Desmodium ciliare, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. f Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 140732519
Desmodium ciliare, photographed by Lauren McLaurin
fig. g Lauren McLaurin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 26240047
Desmodium ciliare, photographed by cwarneke
fig. h cwarneke, CC0 1.0 / obs. 11412836

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 25 botanical countries

Regions where Desmodium ciliare is native: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Mexico Northeast, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ontario, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras AlabamaFloridaGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaKentuckyMaineMarylandMexico NortheastMississippiMissouriNew YorkNorth CarolinaOklahomaOntarioPennsylvaniaSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasWest VirginiaCubaDominican RepublicHaitiHonduras Bahamas
Native distribution of Desmodium ciliare, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Kentucky KTY
Maine MAI
Maryland MRY
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mississippi MSI
Missouri MSO
New York NWY
North Carolina NCA
Oklahoma OKL
Ontario ONT
Pennsylvania PEN
South Carolina SCA
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX
West Virginia WVA
Bahamas BAH SOUTHERN AMERICA
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 46 in flower of 70 examined

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Desmodium ciliare observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 46 of 70 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 5 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 12 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Desmodium ciliare var. ciliare
  • Desmodium ciliare var. lancifolium Fernald & B.G.Schub.
  • Desmodium ciliosum Hook.
  • Desmodium marilandicum var. ciliare (Muhl. ex Willd.) H.Ohashi
  • Desmodium marilandicum var. lancifolium (Fernald & B.G.Schub.) H.Ohashi
  • Hedysarum ciliare Muhl. ex Willd.
  • Hedysarum ciliare var. oblongifolium Elliott
  • Hedysarum pobtusum Muhl. ex Willd.
  • Lespedeza coriacea Desv.
  • Meibomia ciliaris (Muhl. ex Willd.) S.F.Blake
  • Meibomia ciliaris var. acutifoliola Schindl.
  • Meibomia ciliaris var. albiflora Schindl.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.