Calopogonium mucunoides Desv.

Slender, sometimes wiry vines, twining or trailing, stems pilose with spreading golden hairs ca. 1 mm long. Leaves pinnate trifoliolate, the leaflets chartaceous, ovate, mostly 2-6 cm long, mucronulate, obtuse at both ends, lateral leaflets sometimes slightly oblique, the major veins prominent beneath, appressed pilose, more so beneath; petiolules ca. 3 mm long, tomentose; rachis mostly 5-15 mm long; petioles mostly longer than the terminal leaflet; stipels ca. 4 mm long, pubescent; stipules ovoid, ca. 3 mm long, pilose. Racemes slender, peduncles short in flower, elongate, 3-12 cm long in fruit, the rachis not expanded, flowers in fascicles of 2-6, becoming distant in fruit, pedicels 1-2 mm long, appressed pubescent; bracts and bracteoles narrowly ovate, to linear, striate, long pilose, ca. 4 mm long. Flowers blue or purple, inconspicuous or rarely showy, the calyx 4-7 mm long, deeply 4-fid, the lobes narrow, pilose, the sinuses somewhat ex-ceeded by the bracts, the upper pair fused basally, basally deltoid, apically sub-ulate; corolla with the standard 7-10 mm long, emarginate, slightly exceeding the wings, the keel shorter, curved; ovary villous, the style glabrous. Legume linear oblong, flat, mostly 2-3 cm long, ca. 4 mm wide, mostly straight, the beak 1-2 mm long, softly pilose with coarse reddish brown hairs, sometimes laterally im-pressed between the seeds; seeds 3-8 dark yellowish or reddish brown, com-pressed squarish, 2-3 mm long, the hilum circular, central on one edge.

It is a tropical plant. It grows from sea level to 550 m altitude in the tropics near the equator. It commonly becomes self sown on waste land. It suits hot, humid, tropical conditions with rainfall over 1500 mm per year. It cannot grow in shade. In Yunnan.

Plants can be grown from seed. Seed are produced in large numbers and seed often germinate in the pods.