MEDICAGO MINIMA

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

Common Name:- Bur medick

Homotypic Synonyms:- Medicago minima var. incana, Medicago polymorpha

var. minima, Spirocarpus minimus.

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

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

Minima (L) Least, smallest.

General description:- Annual or occasionally biennial; whole plant rather densely

pubescent, often greyish-green.

Leaves:-

1) Leaflets, obovate or obcordate, dentate near the apex.

2) Stipules, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, sometimes shallowly dentate near the

base.

Flowers:-

1) Peduncle, usually longer than the petiole of the subtending leaf.

2) Inflorescence, 3-6-flowered, dense.

3) Corolla, c. 4 mm, pale yellow.

Fruit:-

1) Legumes, in clusters of 2-4, subglobose, c. 4 mm in diam. (not including spines),

± pubescent, with 3-5 coils, with well-developed submarginal veins usually

bearing long, grooved, uncinate spines.

2) Young fruit protruding sideways from the calyx.

Key features:-

1) Stipules, entire or dentate.

2) Whole plant rather densely pubescent.

3) Peduncle, usually longer than the subtending petiole.

4) Legume, subglobose, sparsely villous and often glandular; transverse veins

sigmoid, not anastomosing.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Sandy fallow fields, open grassland, phrygana and other, open habitats.

0-900(-1600) m.

Distribution:- Common throughout Greece, widespread in Europe, the

Mediterranean area and SW to C Asia; naturalised or casual elsewhere.

Widespread and fairly common on Crete.

Flowering time:- Mid-Mar to June.

Photos by:- Thomas Giannakis