Slender bush-clover

Lespedeza virginica, the slender bush-clover, is an erect perennial herb of the Fabaceae native to eastern and central North America, occurring in dry prairies, open oak woodlands, and roadside slopes. Plants arise from a stout woody crown and reach 30–100 cm, with slender, simple or sparingly branched stems pubescent with short appressed hairs. Leaves are alternate, trifoliolate, on short petioles; leaflets are linear-oblong to narrowly elliptic, 10–25 mm long and 3–6 mm wide, with entire margins, mucronate tip, glabrous above and appressed-hairy beneath. Stipules are subulate and persistent. Inflorescences are dense, axillary, sessile clusters of 4–10 flowers in the upper leaf axils, often crowding into a leafy, terminal spike-like aggregate. Chasmogamous flowers are pink-purple, papilionaceous, 5–7 mm long; cleistogamous flowers are also produced lower on the stem. The pod is a small, single-seeded, ovate-elliptic loment 3–5 mm long, finely pubescent and reticulate-veined. Flowering occurs July–September.