MEDICAGO MONSPELIACA

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

Common Names:- Star-fruited medick, star-fruited fenugreek.

Homotypic Synonyms:- Buceras monspeliaca, Falcatula monspeliaca, Telis

monspeliaca, Trigonella monspeliaca.

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

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

Monspeliaca (L) From Montpellier.

General description:- Short hairy annual

Stems:-

1) 3-15(-30) cm., few, rather stout, densely appressed-pubescent.

Leaves:-

1) Pinnately 3-foliolate, 4-10 x 3-7 mm,

2) Leaflets, obovate-cuneate to rhombic, sharply dentate in the upper half.

Flowers:-

1) In subsessile umbels of 6-14 along the stem.

2) Calyx, c. 3 mm, teeth slightly longer than the tube.

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

Fruit:-

1) Legume, 7-17 x 1-1·5 mm, pendent, linear, slightly curved upwards, usually

pubescent, with thick oblique veins.

2) Seeds, c. 1·5 mm, brown, finely tuberculate.

Key features:-

1) Stems, densely appressed-pubescent.

2) Legume, 7-17 mm, pendent, pubescent at least when young.

3) Calyx-teeth, longer than the tube.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Damp meadows, gravelly roadsides, dry open shrubby vegetation, olive

groves. 0-900(-1600) m.

Distribution:- Central and southern Europe, Karpathos island group. Widespread

on Crete especially around coastal areas.

Flowering time:- Mar-June.

Photo by:- Steve Lenton