Lespedeza capitataMichx.

round-headed bush clover

WFO wfo-0000164446 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Lespedeza capitata, photographed by Thomas Koffel
fig. a Thomas Koffel, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-03 / obs. 204546075
Lespedeza capitata, photographed by Navin Sasikumar
fig. b Navin Sasikumar, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194481636
Lespedeza capitata, photographed by Navin Sasikumar
fig. c Navin Sasikumar, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194481704
Lespedeza capitata, photographed by Lynn Harper
fig. d Lynn Harper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 179761456
Lespedeza capitata, photographed by Becca
fig. e Becca, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175443737
Lespedeza capitata, photographed by Matt Schultz
fig. f Matt Schultz, CC0 1.0 / obs. 167585174
Lespedeza capitata, photographed by Thomas Koffel
fig. g Thomas Koffel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 167044164
Lespedeza capitata, photographed by Cazody
fig. h Cazody, CC0 1.0 / obs. 165903456

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.

Flowering n = 296 observations

Peak flowering in Aug, from 296 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 19 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.

  • Aeschynomene frutescens Poir.
  • Despeleza capitata (Michx.) Nieuwl.
  • Hedysarum conglomeratum Poir.
  • Hedysarum frutescens Willd.
  • Hedysarum umbellatum Walter
  • Lespedeza bicknellii House
  • Lespedeza capitata f. argentea Fernald
  • Lespedeza capitata f. capitata
  • Lespedeza capitata var. capitata
  • Lespedeza capitata var. hirtiformis Fernald
  • Lespedeza capitata var. sericea Hook.
  • Lespedeza capitata var. stenophylla Bissell & Fernald
  • Lespedeza capitata var. typica Fernald
  • Lespedeza capitata var. velutina Fernald
  • Lespedeza capitata var. vulgaris Torr. & A.Gray
  • Lespedeza frutescens (L.) Elliott
  • Lespedeza fruticosa Pers.
  • Lespedeza schindleri H.Lév.
  • Lespedeza velutina E.P.Bicknell

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.

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