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A JAMAICA WEED. 



(Desmodium Tortuosum, Sw.) 

 Useful for Fodder & Green Dressing. 



The following letter contains valuable information on a plant which 

 is a weed in many parts of the island. Being one of the Leguminosae 

 it collects nitrogen from the air, one of the most valuable ingredients 

 of plant food. The best way to renew worn out lands is to sow some 

 such plant as this, and as soon as it has reached the flowering stage 

 to turn in cattle to feed it down ; or it may be then ploughed into the 

 soil on flat land, or simply cut down and left on the ground on very 

 steep land. A specimen may be seen in the Museum of the Institute. 



Prof. F. Lamson Scribner to the Director of Public Gardens and 

 Plantations. 



United States Department of Agriculture, Division of Agrostology, 



Washington, D.C., August, 1st, 1896. 



Dear Sir, 



I forward you to-day, enclosed in separate wrapper, a small package 

 of seed of the Florida beggar weed [Desmodium tortuosum, Sw.), a wild 

 forage plant highly esteemed in the subtropical portions of the United 

 States. It produces fodder of fine quality in large quantities, and 

 grows best on sandy soils containing lime. On cultivated lands it 

 grows often 8 to 10 feet high. The haulms, though rather woody, ;:re 

 eaten by cattle and working stock of all kinds, beggar weed makes 

 an excellent manure. In Florida it is extensively used as a renewer of 

 worn lands. It promises to be a plant of much agricultural value in 

 the warmer countries. 



Respectfully, 

 F. Lamsox-Scribner, Agrostologist. 



The genus Desmodium belongs to the Leguminosae, or Pea Family, 

 having the same form of flower as the pea. The pod, instead of being 

 all in one, like a pea-pod, is divided up into several joints which do not 

 usually open. The leaves have generally 3 leaflets, and there are nu- 

 merous small flowers. In Desmodium tortuosum. D.C., the pod is some- 

 what twisted, divided deeply from both edges into from 2 to 6 round, 

 flat joints ; the flowers are small, purplish, with stalks which are longer 

 than the flowers themselves; the plant is 2 to 3 feet high, covered 

 with hooked hairs. 



Desmodium triflorum, D.C. is also a common weed in Jamaica and 

 the tropics. Roxburgh says that in India it is very common on pas- 

 ture ground, helping to form the most beautiful turf, and that cattle 

 are very fond of it. Yon Mueller recommends it as fodder for places 

 too hot for ordinary clover, which it somewhat resembles in its mode of 

 o-rowth, keeping close to the ground. There are 2 or 3 small flowers grow- 

 ing together at each leaf, the crimson corolla being enclosed in the 

 calyx ; the leaflets are not more than J inch long, and are nearly as? 

 broad, the upper part being the broadest. In India the plant is used 

 medicinally being valued as a cure for dysentery ; the fresh leaves are 

 anplied to wounds and abscesses that do not heal well. 



