MEDICAGO SCUTELLATA

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

Common Names:- Snail medick

SHomotypic Synonyms:- Cochleata scutellata, Medica scutellata, Medicago

Pocockia scutellata.

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

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

Scutellata (L) Dish, dish-like

General description:- Ascending to suberect annual.

Stem:-

1) 20-50 cm, sparsely glandular- and eglandular-pubescent throughout.

Leaves:-

1) Leaflets, obovate to elliptical, cuneate, dentate in the upper part.

2) Stipules, ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, incise-dentate.

Flower:-

1) Peduncles, 1-3-flowered, shorter than or equalling the petiole of the subtending

leaf.

2) Corolla 4-5 mm, dull mustard-yellow.

Fruit:-

1) Legume, 9-18 mm diam, in a spiral of 4-8 pelviform, imbricate turns, glandular-

pubescent, not spiny, transverse veins numerous, conspicuous, freely

anastomosing and joining the strong marginal vein.

2) Young fruit protruding sideways from the calyx.

Key features:-

1) Legume, margin without spines, strongly pelviform, occasionally with small

rounded projections.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Mainly in cultivated and fallow fields, occasionally in rocky places in dry

open shrubby vegetation, meadows and other semi-natural habitats.0-600 m.

Distribution:- Scattered in coastal areas of W Greece, lacking in the interior north.

- Throughout the Mediterranean region, casual elsewhere. Scattered across Crete,

mainly in the east and central west.

Flowering time:- Mar-May.

Photos by:- Kind permission of Saxifraga - Free Nature Images