Desmodium is a genus in the flowering plant family Fabaceae, sometimes called tick-trefoil, tick clover, hitch hikers or beggar lice.[1] There are dozens of species and the delimitation of the genus has shifted much over time.
These are mostly inconspicuous legumes; few have bright or large flowers. Though some can become sizeable plants, most are herbs or small shrubs. Their fruit are loments, meaning each seed is dispersed individually enclosed in its segment. This makes them tenacious plants and some species are considered weeds in places. They have a variety of uses, as well.
Several Desmodium species contain potent secondary metabolites that are released into the soil and aerially. Allelopathic compounds are used aggressively in agriculture in push-pull technology: Desmodium heterocarpon, Desmodium intortum, and Desmodium uncinatum are inter-cropped in maize and sorghum fields to repel Chilo partellus, a stem-boring grass moth, and suppress witchweeds, including Asiatic witchweed (Striga asiatica) and purple witchweed (S. hermonthica).[2] High amounts of antixenotic allomones produced by Desmodium also repel insect pests. Different Desmodium species produce different profiles of organic compounds through their root systems. The reasons for the production of these compounds that have benefited cereal crop production are however unknown, as they don’t seem to serve any apparent function to the plant itself.
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