Desmodium is a sneaky little plant. You walk across a lawn, or step through a tiny mowed area to get to your car faster, and later when you glance down you discover that you've picked up a zillion little hitchhikers. The tiny flat bean shaped burrs are stuck all over your shoes, socks, and or pants, and you have no idea where they came from. Desmodium is where those burrs came from.

They come in many shades of brown, green and yellow, by ones and twos, or in numbers so great that you feel like you brought the whole front yard inside with you.

Yes, I ran around kicking Desmodium to get this picture for you to laugh at:

They seem to stick to just about anything that comes near them, and the washing machine and dryer don't seem to budge them (except when you unwittingly wash some, and find them later because they've moved and taken up residence on the inner surface of your underclothing!)

This photo shows how it lurks nearly invisible in the lawn, flowers long gone, waiting for a chance to hop on for a ride with you.

I doubt that I can say that every burr has its butterfly, but this one does, so before you begin your eradication campaign, consider that Desmodium is supposed to be the host plant for several different skipper butterflies. I'm still searching for caterpillars, and I'll update this if I find one.

Desmodium has leaves in groups of three at the end of the stem. These pictures might help you find it in your lawn when it isn't in bloom:

Desmodium is growing on me (& sticking to me!) I started off despising it, before I even knew what it was called. Then I learned that it was a skipper host plant, and I liked it just a little bit more.

Now I've found this little caterpillar all curled up in a Desmodium leaf, and instead of plucking the stuff out of my lawn as a weed, I'm carefully pinching off the top of the plants to feed my caterpillar while leaving the roots and a few leaves intact to grow more food for it.

It hasn't grown up yet, but I did find another one, so now I'm raising two. I also found this Long-tailed Skipper laying her eggs on Desmodium. I'll have to remember not to pull that one to feed my others! I'd have taken a picture of the egg, but it started to rain and my camera is not waterproof, so I'll have to go look for it later.

Update: One caterpillar grew up, made a chrysalis, and turned into a beautiful Long-tailed Skipper butterfly. The other caterpillar, well, that's a different story that I need to remember to add when I get some more time.