Kummerowia stipulacea is a species of flowering plant in the legume family

Fabaceae

The Fabaceae or Leguminosae, commonly known as the legume, pea, or bean family, is a large and economically important family of flowering plants. The group is the third largest land plant family, behind only the Orchidaceae and Asteraceae, with 730 genera and over 19,400 species...

 known by the common name Korean clover. It is native to China, Japan, Korea, and Russia, and it is present in the eastern United States as an introduced species

Introduced species

An introduced species — or neozoon, alien, exotic, non-indigenous, or non-native species, or simply an introduction, is a species living outside its indigenous or native distributional range, and has arrived in an ecosystem or plant community by human activity, either deliberate or accidental...

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This annual herb grows prostrate, spreading, or erect stems. It grows up to 60 centimeters tall. The leaves are made up of three oval leaflets. One to five flowers occur in the leaf axils. There are cleistogamous

Cleistogamy

Cleistogamy or automatic self-pollination describes the trait of certain plants to propagate by using non-opening, self-pollinating flowers...

 flowers, which self-fertilize and never open, and chasmogamous flowers, which open and receive pollen from other plants. The latter flower type is purple-blue in color. The fruit is a small legume pod containing one seed.

This plant was introduced to the United States when it was intentionally planted in Arlington, Virginia, by the USDA in 1919. This species and Japanese clover

Kummerowia striata

Kummerowia striata is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common name Japanese clover. It is native to much of Asia and it is present in the eastern United States as an introduced species....

 were used to revegetate abandoned coal mine

Coal mining

The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...

 sites. Its seed was spread to attract wildlife and as a forage for livestock. It was used to prevent erosion

Erosion

Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...

 along roadsides. It was planted in rotation with cereal crops to enhance the soil. It persisted and spread. Today this plant grows in the wild and provides food for a number of mammal and bird species. It is also a high-quality livestock forage. The seed is still sold for planting. Three cultivar

Cultivar

A cultivar'Cultivar has two meanings as explained under Formal definition. When used in reference to a taxon, the word does not apply to an individual plant but to all those plants sharing the unique characteristics that define the cultivar. is a plant or group of plants selected for desirable...

s are available: "Climax", "Harbin", and "Rowan". Despite its status as a weed

Weed

A weed in a general sense is a plant that is considered by the user of the term to be a nuisance, and normally applied to unwanted plants in human-controlled settings, especially farm fields and gardens, but also lawns, parks, woods, and other areas. More specifically, the term is often used to...

 in some areas, it is not very aggressive and not considered a noxious weed.