MEDICAGO TUBERCULATA

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

Common Name:- None

Homotypic Synonyms:- None

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

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

Tuberculata (L) Knobbly, warted, warty, tuberculate.

General description:- Sparsely pilose annual, usually branched from the base.

Stems:-

1) 15-40 cm. ascending.

Leaves:-

1) Leaflets, of upper leaves elliptic-rhomboid, sharply serrulate in the upper half.

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

Flowers:-

1) Peduncles, slender, somewhat longer than the leaves.

2) Inflorescence, 3-6-flowered but often only a single fruit developing.

3) Corolla, 5-8 mm, yellow.

Fruit:-

1) Legume, spherical to broadly ellipsoid, tightly coiled, 5-8 mm in diam., glabrous,

hardened at maturity, coils usually with marginal vein elevated as a distinct

ridge, spines, usually short, broad, obtuse, rarely acute and up to 1/2 as long as

the diam., of the legume.

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Habitat:- Coastal habitats, olive groves, field margins, sometimes in phrygana, 0-

500 m (occasionally somewhat higher in Crete)

Distribution:- Coastal areas throughout Greece except in the NE, ± lacking in the

interior. - Widespread in the Mediterranean region.

Flowering time:- Late March to late May.

Photos by:- A. N. Other