MEDICAGO PRAECOX

Family and Genus:- See- LEGUMINOSAE/Subgen. CYMATIUM

Common Names:- Early medick

Homotypic Synonyms:- Medica praecox.

Meaning:- Medicago (Gr) Median-grass, A name used by the Greek physician

and botanist Dioscorides, from a Persian name for lucerne, or medick.

Praecox (L) Premature, early ripening.

General description:- Small, procumbent annual.

Stem:-

1) Up to 30 cm.

Leaves:-

1) Leaflets, obovate to obtriangular, sharply dentate at the apex, glabrous above,

appressed-pubescent beneath.

2) Stipules, sharply dentate to laciniate.

Flowers:-

1) Peduncles, shorter than the petiole of the subtending leaf.

2) Inflorescence, 1- or 2-flowered.

3) Corolla, very small (c. 2 mm), pale yellow.

Fruit:-

1) Legume, small (3-4 mm in diam., not including spines), shortly cylindrical, with

2-4 rather lax coils; marginal and submarginal veins separated by a narrow

groove, surface of coils with thin, curved veins; spines erecto-patent to almost

parallel to axis of legume, stout, usually uncinate.

Key features:-

1) Leaflets, dentate near the apex

2) Legume, transverse veins, curved but not sigmoid, anastomosing freely near the

submarginal vein.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Salines, grassy slopes, roadsides, dry open shrubby vegetation, open

coniferous woodland, also on small islands 0-800(-1300) m.

Distribution:- Throughout Greece, but rare in the NW. - Mediterranean region,

mainly in the W & C parts, extending to W Anatolia and Crimea and SW Asia. On

Crete known from only a few scattered locations.

Flowering time:- Mar-May.

Photos by:- Thomas Giannakis