Cheesytoes

Stylosanthes hamata

cheesytoes

Cheesytoes, photographed at Bahia Honda State Park, Bahia Honda Key, Monroe County in December 2013


Cheesytoes, Stylosanthes hamata. We vowed not to make an issue out of that strange name. Instead, maybe highlight its use as a ground cover or quality pasture feed for livestock.

But that name just can’t be avoided; it cries, nay demands an explanation, and we have none to give.

What’s more, we came across two other common names for S. hamata that seem (almost) equally odd: pencil flower and donkey weed. Not so much as a scintilla of a clue for those two, either.

So with that out of the way, we’ll skip the name and focus on the botanical basics.

Cheesytoes is a Florida native found mainly in coastal counties from Volusia on the east coast and Pasco on the west, south into the Keys. (The Atlas of Florida Plants and the USDA’s PLANTS Database have differing ranges.) It’s also native to parts of the Caribbean, including the Bahamas, Hispaniola, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. It’s also found in parts of Mexico as well as Central America and South America.

It’s been exported to Australia, Africa, China, and India, where it’s been grown as fodder for livestock and used for soil conservation and improvement.

Cheesytoes takes to a wide range of soil types, including soils with few nutrients. It’s found in human-disturbed areas like roadsides and yards, ruderal (waste) areas and hammocks and the edges of among a few natural habitats. Cheesytoes is a short-lived perennial or annual.

Cheesytoes is so unremarkable that we’ve seen it described as a “common urban weed.” But it’s more than that; in some places, it’s an important feed for livestock.

It has many branches and sprawls along the ground. If it does catch your attention, it’s because of its small, bright yellow pea-like flowers. The flowers have five petals, the lower two fused to form a keel, with a dash of red near the throat. It blooms year round.

The leaves are compound, each with three leaflets that have a prominent central vein, and are arranged alternately along the stem. Each leaflet is about a half-inch to an inch long and relatively narrow. The “book” on cheesytoes says it can grow as tall as 18 inches, but we’ve never seen it as anything other than low-lying ground cover.

Its fruit is a pod with two segments, each with a single seed. The upper segment is also shaped like a hook and snags onto fur, feather or clothing, using the animal or human to unwittingly distributed the pods and seeds as they go about their business. The species name, hamata, in fact means hook.

Cheesytoes is a legume, meaning it fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere to the soil with the help of some friendly bacteria, which is one reason why it is attractive as pasture fodder. Think of it as free fertilizer. It also offers a decent amount of protein for livestock and is tolerant to overgrazing by livestock.

Unfortunately, cheesytoes also can be invasive — it’s considered as such in parts of Australia, including Queensland and the Northern Territory. But in most places where it’s been imported, it seems well-behaved.

Both the white peacock and southern skipperling butterflies use cheesytoes as a source of nectar.

Other common names for cheesytoes include sweet weed, Caribbean stylo, Jamaican stylo, stylo, verano stylo, verano stylo grass, wild clover, lady's fingers, Mother Segal and Lucy Julia. It’s also spelled cheesy toes. It is a member of Fabaceae, the pea family.

Bahia Honda State Park

Photo Gallery — Click on photo for larger image





Published by Wild South Florida, PO Box 7241, Delray Beach, FL 33482.

Photographs by David Sedore. Photographs are property of the publishers and may not be used without permission.