Pseudarthria viscida

Pseudarthria viscida (L.)

Family     :   Fabaceae/leguminosae

Common Name  : മൂവില (Mal)

                                  चपकनो (Hin)

                                  Sticky Desmodium(Eng)

Sticky Desmodium is a perennial under shrub which grows all over India up to 1000 m altitude. It attains the height about 60-120 cm. The branches are slender and covered with minute white hair. The leaves are 7.5-15 cm long and 2.5-5 cm broad, trifoliate, ovate-oblong, hairy and densely grey-silky beneath. The flowers purplish or pink, in 15-30 cm long axillary racemes. The fruits, pods, oblong, flattened, covered with sticky hairs.

 Viscid pubescent subshrubs up to 75 cm tall. Leaves 3-foliolate; terminal leaflet 5-8 x 4-6 cm, ovate-rhomboid; laterals 3-4 x 2-3.5 cm, obliquely ovate, apex acute, base cuneate or obtuse, glabrescent above and densely woolly below; petioles 4-6 cm long; stipules 5-6 mm long, subulate. Flowers in axillary or terminal, often branched racemes; bracts and bracteoles 4-5 mm long, subulate, hairy. Calyx-tube 1-1.5 mm long; lobes 2-3 mm long, subulate, hairy. Petals purplish; standard 4-5 mm long, ovate-obtuse. Stamens 9+1; staminal sheath c. 4 mm long. Ovary 3.5-4 mm long, terete, densely pubescent without; style subulate, incurved; stigma capitate. Pod 1-2 x 0.4-0.5 cm, linear-oblong, compressed, pubescent with hooked hairs; seeds 4-6, reniform.