Family: Fabaceae
Group: Dicot
Substrate:
Terrestrial
Habit:
Herb
Perennation:
Perennial
Native Range: West Indies, South Florida, likely elsewhere in the American tropics but range of this taxon unclear due to taxonomic lumping and splitting.
Map of select IRC data for peninsular Florida
SOUTH FLORIDA Occurrence:
Present
SOUTH FLORIDA Native Status:
Native
SOUTH FLORIDA Cultivated Status:
Not Cultivated
Comments: The FISF and IRC have long considered that there were two forms of what has been treated as
Desmodium incanum in South Florida, one native and one perhaps introduced. While most plants grow as weeds, with elliptic leaves that are often variegated, other individuals with larger, ovate leaves with acute tips have been observed in undisturbed pine rocklands and rockland hammock ecotones in Miami-Dade County. Franck et al. (in prep.) have determined that the weedy plants are likely
Desmodium mauritianum, introduced from the Old World, a taxon that is often placed into synonymy under
Desmodium incanum (see e.g.
GFIF 2022).
Desmodium incanum, in the narrow sense, has been documented in the United States only in Miami-Dade County, Florida south of the Miami River, and once along the Snake Bight Trial in Everglades National Park in the southeasternmost Monroe County mainland. Plants grow in a variety of calcareous habitats, including pine rocklands, edges of rockland hammocks, marl prairies, and open coastal berms. One of the best populations can be observed at the Florida International University Environmental Preserve. We are currently editing data between the two species, and more
Desmodium incanum records will be added.
