Shrub Bushclover

Lespedeza bicolor Fabaceae

Growth habit

Shrub

Perennation

Long-lived perennial

Native distribution

Japan, China, Manchuria, Taiwan, Korea

Source of plant

Bluebird Nursery Inc.

Description

Bush to 3m, usually woody based, somewhat scandent. Leaflets 1-7.5x0.8-3.5cm, ovate or elliptic, apex minute, blunt to broadly rounded, base blunt to rounded, vivid green above, paler beneath, thinly downy above while young, pilose to glabrous beneath. Flowers loosely packed in numerous axillary racemes, or in terminal, paniculate clusters composed of several racemes, peduncles 10-50mm, downy; pedicels 1.5-5mm, hirsute; bracts ovate, rusty pubescent; bracteoles to 1.2mm; corolla 10-12mm, purple-rose or rose-violet; caylx 5-6.5mm, thickly to sparsely stiff-hirsute, tube 1.5-2.5mm, cylindrical, lobes 2.5-4.5mm, acute, linear-lanceolate. Fruit 5-8xc5-8mm, subspherical, loosely white-downy.

USDA Hardiness Zone

5