Description

Blue Wiss is a twining or trailing grass with slender stems, sometimes rooting at the nodes, 0.3 to 3 meters long, having bristles directed backwards. The leaves are composed, alternate, with 3 elliptical leaflets. The very small flowers can be purple, pink or white cream, arranged on an axis, 5 to 12 cm. The fruit is a hairy pod.

Characteristics:

Blue Wiss is an extremely variable perennial, climbing or trailing to prostrate legume, sometimes with a woody rootstock. Stems are 1-9 ft long, slender, covered with hairs, or hairless, sometimes rooting at the nodes. Leaves are trifoliate with leaflets rounded, elliptic, ovate, obovate or even narrowly oblong or lanceolate, 1-8 cm long, 0.5 to 4 cm wide, smooth to densely covered with hairs. Leaf stalks are 0.9-4 cm long. Inflorescence is slender and usually few flowered. Sepal tube is smooth or hairy, ribbed, 1-3 mm long, with lance-shaped sepals, 0.8-3 mm long, sharp tipped, usually densely hairy. Standard petal is white, pink or purplish, obovate, 5 mm long, 3.5 mm wide. Wings are pale mauve, and the keel white. Pods are linear, 2.5-6 cm long, 2-4 mm wide, smooth to densely covered with hairs.

Medicinal Uses:

Plant extracts are used in natural medicines in India. Blue Wiss is a herb, commonly known as mashaparni (Sanskrit) and mashavan (Hindi), and a well-known medicinal plant in the Ayurvedic system of medicine. It has been reported to be useful in treating rheumatism, tuberculosis, nerve disorders, paralysis and catarrhs.