Naked-flowered Tick-trefoil

Desmodium nudiflorum

Describing the color of the flowers of this large group of plants, one botanist says that they are not yellow.  They are not blue either.  The color can be red, purple, pink, and sometimes white on this 4-foot plant.  As the name implies, all these plants have three leaflets in their leaves with the central one definitely having a stalk.  The tick part of the name comes from the seed pods.  These are jointed, anywhere from 2 to 4 joints with each covered with hairs that have hooks.  The flowers are clover-like and are at the terminal end of branches.  They are arranged in racemes. This plant is easy to identify.  The flowers stand on a stalk without having any leaves nearby.  In order to find what was at the base of the flower stalk, a small dig had to be made.  This led to the discovery of another stalk growing in an entirely different direction on which grew the leaves.