MEDICAGO LUPULINA

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

Common Names:- Black medick, nonesuch

Homotypic Synonyms:- Lupularia parviflora, Lupulina aurata, Medica lupulina

Medicula lupulina, Melilotus lupulinus, Trifolium lupulinum.

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

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

Lupulina (L) Hop-like, with the rampant habit of hops.

General description:- More or less pubescent annual or short-lived perennial.

Stem:- Generally 15-40 cm. prostrate to ascending.

Leaves:-

1) Leaflets, obovate, rounded to truncate, dentate-serrate in front, subappressed-

pilose.

Flower:-

1) Peduncle, slender, much exceeding the petiole of the subtending leaf.

2) Inflorescence, capitate, usually 10-20-flowered, somewhat elongating in fruit.

3) Corolla, 3-4 mm, yellow.

Fruit:-

1) Legume, small (1.5-3 mm), reniform, 1-seeded and indehiscent, without spines,

with curved, slightly anastomosing veins, usually pubescent, blackish when ripe.

Key features:-

1) Legume, up to 3 mm ± falcate or reniform. margin with one longitudinal vein.

2) Seed, solitary.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Damp to dry pastures, evergreen and deciduous scrub, open coniferous

woodland, field margins. 0-900(2100) m.

Distribution:- A widespread Euro-Siberian species, frequently naturalised

elsewhere. Limited distribution on Crete, mainly around the three main massifs.

Flowering time:- Apr-July.

Photos by:- Giorgos Zarkos