ALL PREORDER SPECIES ARE STILL GROWING IN OUR GREENHOUSE - Please note all orders containing preorder species will be held until all plants in your order are ready to pickup or ship. If you would like available plants sooner please make two separate orders.
About The Plant
Light
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Full, Partial
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Moisture
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Medium-Dry to Dry
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Bloom
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Mid to Late-Summer
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Color
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Pink
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Height
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6 FT
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Illinois tick trefoil is an herbaceous perennial in the pea family that prefers full to partial sun and average to dry soils. In its optimum conditions it can proliferate via self-seeding. This dry prairie species can grow up to six feet tall, though it typically stays closer to four. Its leaves which loosely adorn its unbrached stem are composed of three rounded, lance-shaped leaflets about 2.5 inches in length. Compared to other tick trefoils, Illinois tick trefoil typically has fewer flowers that bloom simultaneously.
Its pink pea flowers are arranged in spaced out pairs along the stout flowering stalk and open just a few at a time throughout the summer. With its pistils and stamens forming curved tubes that offer only pollen as a floral resource, Illinois tick trefoil is primarily pollinated by long-tongued bees such as bumblebees and leaf-cutter bees. The fruit that follow are segmented pods called loments from which the genus name Desmodium is derived– the Greek word desmos means “chain” and here refers to the shape of the fruiting structure. The loments of Illinois tick trefoil are typically composed of three to nine segments which is more than other tick trefoils. These loments are covered in hooked hairs which allow them to attach to clothing as well as the myriad animals which eat the seeds and foliage. Some of these animals include quails, turkeys, mice, deer, rabbits, and groundhogs. The leaves are also used by a diversity of insects such as weevils, aphids, leaf-miners, gall flies, and caterpillars of several species including the cheshire cat moth, northern cloudywing, southern cloudywing, eastern tailed blue, and gray hairstreak. As a member of the pea family, Illinois tick trefoil uses a symbiotic relationship with bacteria in its roots called rhizobia to fix atmospheric nitrogen into the soil, acting as a natural fertilizer.
