Melilotus albus Medik.

White melilot (en), Mélilot blanc (fr)

Species

Angiosperms > Fabales > Fabaceae > Melilotus

Characteristics

Annual or biennial herbs, glabrescent. Stems erect, 70-200 cm, terete, hollow, much branched. Stipules subulate, 6-10 mm, entire; petiole slender, shorter than leaflet; leaflets lanceolate, oblong, or oblanceolate-oblong, 15-30 × (4-)6-12 mm, pu­berulent abaxially, glabrous adaxially, lateral veins running into teeth, 12-15 pairs, margins shallowly serrate. Racemes 8-20 cm; flowers 40-100; bracts 1.5-2 mm; pedicels 1-2 mm. Co­rolla white, 3.5-5 mm; standard larger than wings and keel. Ovary narrowly ovate; ovules 2-4. Legume elliptic to oblong, 3-3.5 mm, veins reticulate, thin, brown, dark when ripe, apex acute, beaked. Seeds 1 or 2, brown, ovoid, papillate. Fl. May-Jul, fr. Jul-Sep.
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Erect annual or biennial up to 2.5 m high; stems almost glabrous or sparsely to moderately hairy in upper parts. Lvs almost glabrous but sparsely hairy when young; petioles c. 5-25 mm long; leaflets oblong-elliptic to obovate, obtuse to acute, mucronate, obtuse to cuneate at base, serrate, c. 10-30 mm long; stipules linear-lanceolate, entire. Racemes lax and slender, up to 25 cm long at fruiting; fls numerous. Peduncles > petioles. Calyx ± glabrous to sparsely hairy; calyx teeth = or < tube, narrowly triangular. Corolla white, 4-5 mm long; wings ± = keel. Pod glabrous, reticulately veined, 3-5 mm long, 1-2-seeded; seeds light brown, 2-3 mm long.
Annual herb, up to 1.8 m high; much branched. Leaves with rachis of larger leaves, excluding terminal petiolule, often prolonged > 4 mm beyond lateral leaflets. Flowers: in many-flowered racemes; style 1.7-2.3 mm long; corolla white; Oct.-Apr. Pods with a weak, irregular network of veins, 3 mm long.
An annual or biennial herb. It grows 20-100 cm high. It is tall and bushy. The leaves are made up of 3 leaflets with teeth around the edge. The flowers are small and white. They are pea-like. The flowers and stalk are 5-20 cm long. The fruit is an oval wrinkled pod. It is 3-5 mm long and grey-brown.
Corolla white, ± twice as long as the calyx; standard c. 4 mm long, broadly oblong-ovate, distinctly emarginate at the apex; wings slightly exceeding the keel, with small, hooked auricles; keel c. 4 mm long, oblong.
Leaflets narrowly oblong-obovate to linear or elliptic, cuneate and entire at the base, denticulate around the upper half or more; stipules linear-subulate, entire.
Pod 3–5 mm long, globose-ovoid or subglobose, with a short, curved beak at the apex, weakly reticulately veined, ± brown when mature, glabrous.
Calyx c. 2 mm long; teeth narrowly deltoid, somewhat unequal (the lowest shortest), glabrous or somewhat appressed-hairy.
Flowers small, with pedicels 1.5–2.5 mm long, becoming deflexed in fruit.
Racemes many-flowered, up to 17 cm long, lax; peduncle up to 4 cm long.
Erect, branched annual herb.
Seeds ovoid, smooth.
Life form
Growth form herb
Growth support free-standing
Foliage retention deciduous
Sexuality hermaphrodite
Pollination entomogamy
Spread epizoochory
Mature width (meter) -
Mature height (meter) 1.2
Root system tap-root
Rooting depth (meter) 1.5
Root diameter (meter) -
Flower color
Blooming months
JanFebMar
AprMayJun
JulAugSep
OctNovDec
Fruit color -
Fruiting months
JanFebMar
AprMayJun
JulAugSep
OctNovDec
Nitrogen fixer
Photosynthetic pathway c3

Environment

Fields and waste places on dry, not acid soils. A plant of open, disturbed places, being found in sites such as sand dunes, prairies, desert scrub, roadsides etc, but avoiding the dryest areas.
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It is a temperate plant. It grows is tussock grassland. Tasmania Herbarium. In Sichuan and Yunnan.
Light 7-9
Soil humidity 3-6
Soil texture 1-6
Soil acidity 4-7
Soil nutriment -
Hardiness (USDA) 4-10

Usage

CAUTION: Don't use plants dried. Plants dried in damp poorly ventilated conditions can contain discoumarin. Leaves and seeds flavour Gruyere cheese. The young leaves before flowering can be added to salads or boiled for 5 minutes. The flowers are used as a vanilla like flavouring. The pea like seeds can be used for seasoning in soups.
Uses animal food bee plant breeding environmental use fodder forage green manure invertebrate food material medicinal oil ornamental pasture poison seasoning soil improve vertebrate poison
Edible flowers leaves pods roots seeds shoots
Therapeutic use Expectorant (unspecified), Sore (unspecified), Spasm (unspecified), Poison (unspecified), Sclerosis (unspecified), Emollients (unspecified), Flatulence (unspecified)
Human toxicity weak toxic (aerial)
Animal toxicity strong toxic (aerial)

Cultivation

Plants can be grown from seeds. Plants produce a very large number of seeds and these can remain viable in the soil for many years.
Mode seedlings
Germination duration (days) -
Germination temperacture (C°) -
Germination luminosity -
Germination treatment soaking
Minimum temperature (C°) -
Optimum temperature (C°) 12 - 28
Size -
Vigor -
Productivity -

Images

Habit

Melilotus albus habit picture by Julia (cc-by-sa)
Melilotus albus habit picture by Anne Racary (cc-by-sa)
Melilotus albus habit picture by Bernard Fabier (cc-by-sa)

Leaf

Melilotus albus leaf picture by did_21 (cc-by-sa)
Melilotus albus leaf picture by Marc Roussin (cc-by-sa)
Melilotus albus leaf picture by mm volkers (cc-by-sa)

Flower

Melilotus albus flower picture by did_21 (cc-by-sa)
Melilotus albus flower picture by Gi GA (cc-by-sa)
Melilotus albus flower picture by Dr. Kurt Haberkorn (cc-by-sa)

Fruit

Melilotus albus fruit picture by Marie-France Petibon (cc-by-sa)
Melilotus albus fruit picture by Francisco Bell Bell (cc-by-sa)
Melilotus albus fruit picture by Llandrich anna (cc-by-sa)

Distribution

Melilotus albus world distribution map, present in Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Bahamas, Belarus, Brazil, Bhutan, Canada, Switzerland, China, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Algeria, Ecuador, Egypt, Spain, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Haiti, Hungary, India, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Korea (Republic of), Lebanon, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lesotho, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Moldova (Republic of), Myanmar, Mongolia, Mauritius, Netherlands, Norway, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Réunion, Romania, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Sweden, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Tanzania, United Republic of, Ukraine, United States of America, Uzbekistan, Yemen, South Africa, and Zimbabwe

Identifiers

LSID urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:156656-2
WFO ID wfo-0000212815
COL ID 3ZFBQ
BDTFX ID 41764
INPN ID 107886
Wikipedia (EN) Link
Wikipedia (FR) Link

Synonyms

Melilotus albus Melilotus argutus Melilotus leucanthus Melilotus giganteus Melilotus tenellus Melilotus melanospermus Melilotus vulgaris Melilotus angulatus Melilotus strictus Melilotus rugulosus Melilotus urbani Trifolium album Trifolium vulgare Melilotus kotschyi Medicago alba Trigonella alba Melilotus alba Melilotus albus f. albus Melilotus albus var. annua Melilotus albus var. argutus Melilotus albus var. macrocarpus Melilotus officinalis var. albus Melilotus vulgaris var. gigantea Melilotus vulgaris var. minor