A new cordage plant and a new species for Wakulla county, Florida

Desmodium marilandicum or small-leaf tick trefoil is a plant I found in a corner of my property. I was weeding dog fennel, horse mint and goldenrod when I came across a small patch of this plant. As I pulled the long (4 feet +) stems I noticed how much the bark resembled dog bane. Since it was dead and fairly dry I processed a stem like I would dog bane and found it has very strong fibers. The outer bark came off like dried dog bane as I rolled some cordage. I made a string about 4 foot long, S twist, and did a test on my hanging scale. It held at 30 pounds and for a string about a 16th inch in diameter that is pretty good.

The plant has lite brown bark and the leaves are in 3's, thus the name trefoil. Its flowers are small purple and pea like. The seed pods are covered with tiny barbs and attach easily to your pets and clothing helping the plant to spread. Here are a few links to give you an idea of what it looks like:

https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=dema2

https://wildflowersearch.org/search?&tsn=25809 

http://mywildflowers.com/detail.asp?photo=2011/dc13T

https://florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/plant.aspx?id=3745 

 This  hasn't been reported from Wakulla county where I live so come next summer I'll be sending a specimen off to the University of South Florida. The reason I pull a lot of tall weeds by hand is I save the straight stems for hand drills. goldenrod and dog fennel work great and I have a few other species I haven't tried yet but they are drying out in the shop. These will be reported on in a future article. Stay tuned.....