Telegraph plant
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| Desmodium motorium (Houtt.) Merril. |
The Telegraph Plant (Desmodium motorium, syn. Desmodium gyrans, Codariocalyx motorius), also known as Semaphore plant, is a tropical Asian shrub known for its slow movement of small lateral leaflets which rotate on their axes and jerk up and down with a period of about 3 to 5 minutes.
This plant is one of a few plants capable of rapid movement; others include Mimosa and the Venus Flytrap.
Charles Darwin in 1880 published his last work before his death, The Power of Movement in Plants. The work describes this plant in detail.
This plant's native habitat is widely distributed throughout Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. It can even be found on the Society Islands, a remote chain of islands in the South Pacific.
This plant produces small purple flowers.
The plant contains small amounts of tryptamine alkaloids in leaf, stem, and root.
[edit] External links
- Trout’s Notes on the Genus Desmodium Chemistry, ethnomedicine, pharmacology, synonyms and miscellany (pdf)
