Pycnospora lutescens - Tiny Sweetvetch

Tiny Sweetvetch is a trailing herb, 15-60 cm long. Flowers are borne in 2-5-flowered racemes at branch-ends. Calyx is minute, sepals deeply 2-cleft; teeth subulate. Flowers are 2-3 mm long, purple. Ovary about 1 mm long, oblong; ovules many. Young stem, leaf-stalks and flower-cluster-stalks are velvet-hairy with short hooked hairs. Leaves are 3-foliolate; middle leaflet 1-1.5 x 0.8-1.2 cm, ovate-obovate, wedge-shaped at base, blunt or slightly notched at tip; laterals 0.8-1.2 x 0.6-0.8 cm, elliptic, hairless above, velvet-hairy beneath. The underside of the leaflets appears yellowish due to velvety hairs, which may be the origin of the species name lutescens. Stipules are 5-7 mm long, lanceshaped, tapering. Pods are 6-8 x 5-6 mm, oblong, turgid, hairy, black when mature. Tiny Sweetvetch is found in Western Ghats and Himalayas, at altitudes up to 1300 m. It is also found in China and parts of SE Asia.