Lespedeza juncea
(L.) Pers. Chinese LespedezaErect or decumbent perennial subshrub, 60–120 cm tall; stems appressed silky-hairy. Leaflets linear-cuneate to obovate, 7–25 mm long, 2–5 mm wide, upper surface glabrous, lower surface appressed-hairy, apices truncate to obtuse, mucronate; stipules 1–6 mm long. Flowers solitary or 2–7 in axillary clusters; bracts to c. 1 mm long; bracteoles linear, to c. 2 mm long. Calyx 3–5 mm long, appressed-hairy; teeth longer than tube; corolla 6–7 mm long, creamy-yellow or pink-purple; standard often with a darker purple patch; keel curved. Pod 3–4 mm long, sparsely hairy, sessile; seed c. 2.5 mm long, brown. Flowers summer–autumn.
VRiv, MuF, CVU, NIS, EGL, EGU, HSF, HNF, VAlp. Also Qld, NSW, ACT. Occurs through much of Asia. Scattered in north-eastern and eastern Victoria and often locally abundant on seasonally inundated sandy soils along watercourses.
Australian specimens have been treated as subsp. sericea (Maxim.) Steenis (syn. L. sericea (Thunb.) Miq.), but Addema (2019), asserted that characters used to distinguish this and L. cuneata (Dum.Cour.) G.Don from L. juncea were not sufficiently diagnostic to maintain those names .
Addena, F. (2019). Notes on Malesian Fabaceae (Leguminosae-Papilionoideae) 18. The genus Lespedeza. Blumea 64: 272–274.
