The Desmodium tweedyi plant species has been described with stem standing erect up to four feet high, its leaves 1 to 4.5 inches in width -- the widest (ovate) part at the base and rhombic-elliptic to egg-shaped – the leaves with long, soft, strait leaf-hairs (pilose) and raised veins in a spreading (pubescent) network beneath. The plant stalk supporting the blade (petiole) is 1.5 to 3.5 inches long, the stalk (pedicel) supporting individual flowers in the cluster (inflorescence) 0.4 to 0.9 inches long (Picture B). Flower petals (corollas) are white (picture A). Fruit segments 0.2 to 0.3 inches long are distinctly flat, breaking into two to six segments, with hooked hairs characteristic of all species in the Desmodium genus, causing them to stick to hair or clothing. Leaflets grow in clusters of three (tripinnate) distributed along both sides of an elongate axis attached to the main stalk, each leaf distinctly colored with a large conspicuous pale to whitish area along the midvein, as in the picture labeled D. Leaflet clusters attach to the main stalk with a small appendage (stipel). The flower cluster's "inflorescence axis" occurs "with short hooked hairs, petals white with greenish or yellowish tinge, sometimes with lavender base."
