Dug a few of these up and brought them home a few months ago. The leaves are tri-foliate, flowering now (October), plants are about 24 inches tall, starting to twine and climb.




Identified as Macroptilium lathyroides.

Strophostyles umbellata? Maybe something along those lines? The bloom looks like a pea or bean type bloom to me.

greene, did you dig them, locally? I was thinking Strophostyles umbellata or possibly Trailing Pea (Strophostyles leiosperma): http://www.minnesotawildflower... but I'm not sure if that one appears in Georgia.

edited to add: It is found in the south so could very well be S. leiosperma. http://luirig.altervista.org/s...

drawings of S. helvola, S. umbellata, S. leiosperma: http://luirig.altervista.org/f...

If not Strophostyles, maybe Clitoria is a possibility? http://www.namethatplant.net/p...

needrain and plantladylin

We can rule out the Clitoria, and the S. helvola has the wrong shape of leaf (too rounded).

The Strophostyles looks close just don't know which one yet.

Yes I did get them locally, and if I remember correctly they were blooming more of a purple color at the time (early spring)... however...they were growing in a boggy area on the property recently used as a retail plant store/nursery so the plants and/or seeds could have tagged along from when the received a shipment but probably only from the southern states.

I'll head over that way to see if I can get some new and improved photos with a ruler or pen to indicate size to post and will keep my eye out for seed pods.

I corrected my spelling typo's in my earlier post, hopefully I got all of them ... I shouldn't type when I'm in a hurry, like right now.

Forgot to ask, what do you think of the comparison to S. leiosperma? http://www.minnesotawildflower...

I have strophostyles in my yard and they do not look like that. Both helvola and umbellata look identical except for a small difference in bract on the flower. They start out light pink and fade to a cream color. Strophostyles leiosperma bloom is much smaller than the other two.
Strophostyles new bloom color.



Old bloom color.



Strophostyles leiosperma on left S. umbellata or helvola on right.

I may have the name of this one.

It is in the ATP database but no one has added informaiton: Phasey Bean (Macroptilium lathyroides)

http://www.tropicalforages.inf...
http://agronomy.ifas.ufl.edu/f...
http://www.susanleachsnyder.co...
https://ourorca.wordpress.com/...

Does anyone think this is correct?

Looks good to me.

This identification took almost a year!
Apparently useful as forage, good food for Quail, but for most folks it's just a plain old weed.

Glad you finally got an ID on this one! It may be a weed but it's a pretty weed and serves a great purpose if it attracts Quail.

Thanks. You would not believe the circumstances involved in the chance identification.

My friend PlantSister (in Thailand) and I were working to clarify the identity of a certain plant.
PlantSister sent me a link to a type of Phaseolus and (having dyslexia I had to sort of sound out the word with my eyes ) and while my eyes were busy with that task my brain said...."Hey, dummy...Phasey Beans!!" That sparked a memory of when I first moved to the south and heard of food called Phasey Beans. Guess it's a 'southern thing'.

I was born and raised in the south (Virginia) and I'd never heard of Phasey Bean. I googled and found this: http://www.feedipedia.org/node...
http://www.tropicalforages.inf...

Yep, that was one of the links I added to the post when I made the identification. Your eyes are about as good as mine.

I don't know who eats these beans (or peas) but I remember someone telling me about them when I first moved to Georgia. I also learned about Creasy Greens...but that's a whole other plant.