Melilotus

White sweet clover ( Melilotus albus)

Sweet clover ( Melilotus ), also called sweet clover, a genus that to the subfamily of Fabaceae ( Faboideae ) within the legume family ( Fabaceae ) is heard. The genus includes about 20 species. It is native to Europe and Asia.

Description

Clover species are one-to two perennial herbaceous plants. The alternate and spirally arranged leaves are stalked, pinnate and consist of three leaflets. The edges of the leaflets are serrated. The stipules are fused to the petiole.

The flowers are borne in axillary, unbranched, racemose inflorescences. There are only tiny bracts present. The stalked, zygomorphic flowers are hermaphroditic and fünfzählig. The five sepals are fused bell-shaped. The more or less unequal calyx teeth are much shorter than the corolla tube. The five petals are yellow or white. The deformed two petals boat is shorter than the two wings. Nine of the ten fertile stamens are fused with each other Roehrig same multiform anthers. It's just a constant upper carpel available with one to five ovules. The stylus is thin. Pollination is by Hymenoptera, mainly by bees ( entomophily ).

The small legume is about as long as the calyx and containing one to four seeds. As diaspore ( propagule ) the fruit or the seed used.

Use

Three species are agriculturally important: White, Yellow and Indian sweet clover. In the field of sweet clover is used as pasture plant, especially as bee pasture and green manure. From sliced ​​sweet clover hay or silage is prepared. Spoiled hay and poorly preserved silage containing dicumarol, a degradation product of the coumarin; Dicumarol is toxic to livestock and leads to external and internal bleeding. By released during the drying of the plant coumarin then gets the hay the typical smell of hay, or the scent of woodruff.

The Natural or Yellow sweet clover preferred stony sites. Be used medically collected during the flowering season aboveground plant parts from genuine sweet clover (M. officinalis ), but also the herb from the Hohenstein clover ( M. altissima), which can be found in more humid places ( meadows ).

System

The genus Melilotus belongs to the tribe Trifolieae in the subfamily of the Fabaceae ( Faboideae ) within the legume family ( Fabaceae ).

The genus includes about 20 ( to 25) species, most of which come from the Mediterranean to Central Asia before. :

  • White sweet clover ( Melilotus albus Medik. )
  • Perforated sweet clover ( Melilotus dentatus ( Waldst. & Kit. ) Pers. )
  • Melilotus elegans Salzm. ex Ser.
  • Melilotus hirsutus Lipsky
  • Kleinblütiger sweet clover ( Melilotus indicus (L. ) All. )
  • Melilotus infestus cast.
  • Melilotus italicus (L.) Lam.
  • Melilotus macrocarpus Coss. & Durieu
  • Melilotus messanensis (L. ) All.
  • Called Yellow sweet clover or melilot, ( Melilotus officinalis (L.) Lam. )
  • Melilotus polonicus (L.) Desr.
  • Melilotus segetalis ( Brot. ) Ser.
  • Melilotus siculus ( Turra ) Vitman ex B.D.Jacks.
  • Melilotus speciosus Durieu
  • Melilotus spicatus ( Sm ) Breistr.
  • Melilotus suaveolens Ledeb.
  • Furrowed sweet clover ( Melilotus sulcatus Desf. )
  • Melilotus tauricus ( M.Bieb. ) Ser.
  • Melilotus wolgicus Poir.

Pictures

Swell

  • Leslie Watson: Melilotus in the Western Australian Flora: Online, 2008.
  • SI Ali: Papilionaceae in the Flora of Pakistan: Melilotus (online)
Rosids Philip Miller Melilotus altissimus Agricultural Research Service
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