MELILOTUS SULCATUS

Family and Genus:- See- LEGUMINOSAE

Common Names:- Furrowed melilot

Homotypic Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Melilotus (Gr) Honey-clover. A name used by the Greek academic

Theophrastus and refers to melilot's attractiveness to honeybees.

Sulcatus (L) Furrowed, grooved, sulcate.

General description:- Erect, branched or simple annual

Stems:-

1) 10-40 cm.

Leaves:-

1) Leaflets, lower, oblong-cuneate, obtuse, serrate. upper, oblong to oblanceolate.

2) Stipules, dentate.

Flowers:-

1) Racemes, 1-1·5 cm, 8- to 25-flowered, elongating in fruit and then as long as or

longer than the leaves.

2) Corolla, 3-4 mm, yellow.

Fruit:-

1) Legume, 3-4 mm, globose, concentric-striate, pale yellow or yellowish-brown

when ripe.

Key features:-

1) Leaflets, of the upper leaves oblong to oblanceolate.

2) Corolla, 3-4 mm

3) Legume, not stipitate, subglobose.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Field margins, olive groves, roadsides, seasonally damp spots in dry

open shrubby vegetation, occasionally in saline coastal habitats. 0-500 m.

Distribution:- Scattered in W, Greece, lacking in the interior. - Mediterranean

region, eastwards to W Syria and Palestine. Fairly rare on Crete known only from a

few scattered coastal locations

Flowering time:- Late Mar to May.

Photos by:- Courtesy of Wiki-Commons