Desmodium intortum(Mill.) Urb.

greenleaf ticktrefoil

WFO wfo-0000177239 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Desmodium intortum, photographed by Augustin Soulard
fig. a Augustin Soulard, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-29 / obs. 191516523
Desmodium intortum, photographed by Kevin Faccenda
fig. b Kevin Faccenda, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201094332
Desmodium intortum, photographed by Kevin Faccenda
fig. c Kevin Faccenda, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 183465806
Desmodium intortum, photographed by Kevin Faccenda
fig. d Kevin Faccenda, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 182532319
Desmodium intortum, photographed by Skjold Søndergaard
fig. e Skjold Søndergaard, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 177081369
Desmodium intortum, photographed by Skjold Søndergaard
fig. f Skjold Søndergaard, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 168292018
Desmodium intortum, photographed by Brodie Cass Talbott
fig. g Brodie Cass Talbott, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 58046368
Desmodium intortum, photographed by Jake Gross
fig. h Jake Gross, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 2738017

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 24 botanical countries

Regions where Desmodium intortum is native: Arizona, Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Galápagos, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panamá, Peru, Puerto Rico, Venezuela ArizonaMexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestBelizeBoliviaColombiaCosta RicaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáPeruPuerto RicoVenezuela Galápagos
Native distribution of Desmodium intortum, 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
Belize BLZ SOUTHERN AMERICA
Bolivia BOL
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
Galápagos GAL
Guatemala GUA
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Peru PER
Puerto Rico PUE
Venezuela VEN
Arizona ARI NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS

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 336 in flower of 354 examined

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Desmodium intortum 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. 336 of 354 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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 17 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 adhaesivum Schltdl.
  • Desmodium aparines (Link) DC.
  • Desmodium intortum var. apiculatum B.G.Schub.
  • Desmodium intortum var. intortum
  • Desmodium nantouensis Y.C.Liu & F.Y.Lu
  • Desmodium sonorae A.Gray
  • Desmodium trigonum (Sw.) DC.
  • Hedysarum aparines Link
  • Hedysarum intortum Mill.
  • Hedysarum trigonum Sw.
  • Meibomia adhaesiva (Schltdl.) Kuntze
  • Meibomia aparines (Link) Schindl.
  • Meibomia balaensis Schindl.
  • Meibomia intorta (Mill.) S.F.Blake
  • Meibomia sonorae (A.Gray) Kuntze
  • Meibomia trigona Gandara
  • Meibomia trigona F.W.Gandara

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.