Description :

• Herbs, rarely shrubs
• Leaves pinnately 3-foliolate, veins of leaflets usually extended into teeth on margin; stipules entire, dentate, incised or laciniate
• Flowers yellow, purple, mauve or pale lilac, in axillary racemes or heads, or sometimes subsolitary; bracts small or 0
• Calyx with campanulate tube; lobes longer than tube
• Petals : vexillum sessile; wings oblong, eared, clawed; keel shorter than wings, obtuse, with a linear claw
• Stamens diadelphous, with vexillary stamen free; filaments with uniform anthers
• Ovary sessile or subsessile, sometimes twisted, sometimes papillose, (1)- several- to many-ovuled; style variable, with oblique, subcapitate stigma
• Pod spirally falcate, often spiny, often hooked, or somewhat curved and unarmed
• Seeds ovoid, slightly reniform, partitioned or nonpartitioned, pale yellow to yellow-brown
• x = 7, 8, 9 (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• *Medicago L.
  • Linnaeus: 778 (1753)
  • Harvey: 162 (1862)
  • Stirton: 27 (1982)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 50, Europe, except for northernmost part, Africa, and Asia; often naturalised in warm climates
• Southern Africa : Species 4, naturalised, widespread