"Raphanus" wrote in message
ups.com...
See M001 - M004 at http://www.flickr.com/photos/raphanus97/

I'm pretty sure it is in the Mimosa or "Bird-of-Paradise" subfamily of
the pea family. Alternate leaves length about 7mm. The plant is about
a meter high. The fruit is a small sphere (1mm diameter) that could be
divided into three parts. The flower is also very small (1mm across)
and probably consists only of 5 green sepals. I'm in the piedmont area
of South Carolina but that may be irrelevant because I've only seen one
specimen of the plant and I think it hitched a ride on the "plant-ball"
of a liriope that was transplanted from a nursery in a recent
landscaping.

It looks to be Phyllanthus caroliniensis.
What appear to be the compound leaves of a legume are actually
branches with simple small leaves. Some Phyllanthus species
have even more remarkably legume-leaf-like branches than yours.

http://www.hktree.com/tree/Phyllanthus%20emblica.htm

It's a large genus. Some are woody plants, even trees, others are
weedy herbs like yours.

A few have flattened leafless-but-leaflike branches:
http://www.mob-zabrze.pl/galeria/wio...yllanthus2.jpg
http://www.meemelink.com/prints%20pa...ustifolius.htm

There's even a floating aquatic one
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/f...ails.php?id=45

Although long included in the family Euphorbiaceae, more recent
classifications put them and their relatives in a separate family
Phyllanthaceae.

cheers