Common name : Indian sweet clover, yellow sweet clover, sour clover
Bangla English Hindi Urdu
Diagnostic characters
Biology
Ecology and distribution
Nuisance
Weed control
Botany
Uses/Remark
References
Melilotus indica from the Greek words meli, "honey," and lotos, a leguminous plant; indica: of or from or referring in some way to India. This species is a semi-erect plant with tiny yellow flowers on long spikes with a smooth stem below. The leaves are compound, trifoliate, on long petioles, with a pair of stipules forming a wing at the base. They have a distinct central vein, but not very folded.
The small drooping flowers, the smooth stem below the flowers and the toothed leaves make it easily recognizable.
The flowers are perfumed and the leaves are sweeter when dried.
Habit
Semi-erect plant up to 40cm tall.
Roots
Stem
Stem branched, divergent.
Leaves
Compound leaves, trifoliate. Lower leaves long-stalked; leaflets 20-25mm, obovate, narrowing near the inflorescence, margin with few obtuse teeth. Stipules of middle leaves with a more or less entire border.
Inflorescence
Flowers light-yellow, very small, 2-3mm, in axillary, short, spike -like and dense racemes.
Fruit
Pod nearly globose, 1.5-3mm, reticulate veins, glabrous.
Seeds
Seeds usually isolated, 1.5mm, ovate, short, yellow-greenish to reddish.
Seedling
Cotyledons elliptic to ovate, rounded tip, more or less stalked. First leaf cordate; the later 3-foliolate.
Risk of confusion with other species of Melilotus and with some species of Medicago.
- HYPPA Unité de Malherbologie & Agronomie. Weed Science & Agronomy
INRA-Dijon.
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