Facts about Spotted Medick

Medicago arabica, commonly known as spotted medick or burclover is a flowering plant in the pea and bean family Fabaceae / Leguminosae. The plant is native to Mediterranean region and introduced in North and South America and Australia. It is found throughout the world, usually on cliff top grasslands and grassy places. The plant is easy to identify because of the dark red blotch on each leaflet. The spot is anthocyanin, the same flavonoid that gives foods such as blueberries their color. But M. arabica is not edible. The plant forms a symbiotic relationship with the bacterium Sinorhizobium medicae, which is capable of nitrogen fixation.

Few of the popular common names of the plant are Spotted bur-clover, Spotted medic, Spotted medick, Spotted-leaf medic, Burclover, Spotted Bur Medick, Spotted Burclover, Southern burr clover, Spotted burrclover, Spotted burr-clover, Calvary Clover and Cogweed. The genus name Medicago is derived from the Greek word medice which is the name of Alfalfa. Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) was believed to have been brought to Greece from a city called Medea in the North-African country of Algeria. The species epithet arabica means “Arabian, of Arabia” referring to the plants origin. The common name spotted medick describes the plant’s physical appearance.

Spotted Medick Facts

Plant Description

Spotted medick is a native, prostrate or sprawling herb that normally grows about 2–6 cm tall. An annual, it is often found low to the ground mixed in with the grass. The plant is found growing in moist stream banks, grasslands, places, thin pasture, lawns, meadows and fields and disturbed areas including waste lots and roadsides. The plant grows in light, sandy and gravelly soils, particularly near the coast. Stems are decumbent or spreading, longitudinally ridged, sparsely hairy, hairs are simple and multi­cellular-glandular. The plant has one leaf per node along a hairy stem that is often red-streaked.

Leaves

Leaves alternating along the stems are pinnately compound, with 3 leaflets each 0.4-4 cm long and 5–45 mm wide. Margins are toothed towards the tips. Upper surface is hairless, usually with a dark patch near the middle, lower surface is sparsely appressed-hairy, tips squared off or notched with a terminal tooth, stipules strongly toothed and hairy on lower surface.

Flowers

Inflorescence of 1 to 5 pea-like flowers is in a reduced, axillary raceme on a stalk 1-3 cm long on fairly short peduncles arising from the leaf axils. The stalks are shorter than the leaves. Corollas are pea-like, yellow, about 5 mm long, the banner erect, much longer than the wings and keel. Calyces are sparsely white-hairy, 2-3 mm long, the lanceolate, long-pointed teeth slightly longer than the tube. Flowering normally takes place in between April and August.

Fruits

Fertile flowers are followed by pod spirally coiled through 3 to 5 spirals, round, 4-8 mm in diameter, the outer margins narrowly keeled, spineless, or with two rows of divergent prickles up to 2.5-3.5 mm long, somewhat curved to nearly straight with short hook at tip, aging pale brown. Seeds are kidney-shaped, 3 mm long and 1.5–1.8 mm wide, glossy reddish brown, with stalked hilum close to midpoint and adjacent micropyle just outside the hilum.

Other Facts

• For millennia people have used those plants for soap.
• They’ve also been used as a fish poison making it easy to catch the fish.
• A cover crop controls soil erosion and replenishes nutrients.
• It is planted after the primary cash crop has been harvested.
• The plant is an excellent green manure and has been the subject of studies about its use as a cover crop in large-scale farming.

References:

https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=503718#null

http://www.hear.org/pier/species/medicago_arabica.htm

https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/taxon/taxonomydetail?id=23555

https://gd.eppo.int/taxon/MEDAB

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicago_arabica

https://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/33024

https://www.feedipedia.org/content/spotted-medick-medicago-arabica

http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl1.1/record/ild-8482

https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/medicago/arabica/

http://www.worldfloraonline.org/taxon/wfo-0000213417

https://plants.usda.gov/home/plantProfile?symbol=MEAR

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