Medicago turbinata

Boncuk yonca

Annual, 15-40 cm high, densely covered with simple hairs. Stipules from nearly entire to dentate, with two long, apiculate lobes at both extremities, with shorter lobes between them. Leaflets 12-16 x 6-8 mm, those of lower leaves obovate to ovate, those of upper leaves elliptic-rhomboid, obtuse to apiculate. Peduncles 1-8-flowered, crowded, longer than petiole. Flowers 5-8 mm. Calyx teeth about as long as tube. Corolla less than 2 x calyx. Young fruit contracted within calyx. Fruit spherical to ovoid with proximal apex truncate, 6-12 mm high, tubercular or smooth, spiny or spineless, always glabrous; coils 5-7, strongly thickened, lignified and adpressed in mature pods; diam. of broadest coil 5-8 mm; surface of each coil marked with 5-8 slightly bent radial veins, entering into veinless submarginal border, ½ radius of coil; in young fruits marginal vein protruding beyond surface of coil, outline of fruit constricted between the coils; in mature fruit outline usually straightening out ; angle of insertion of spines to surface of coil 180°, sometimes diagonal, their base in mature fruits usually buried in developing tissue. Fl. 3-4. Sandy pine woods, limestone phrygana, fields, waste ground, usually nr. s.l.

1. Mature fruit spineless or with short spines buried in developing tissue , or with spines strongly adpressed to side of pod .....................................................var. turbinata

1. Mature fruit conspicuously spiny

  2. Spines slender, emerging near margin of coils; surface of coils with nearly entire margin; peduncles usually 3-8-flowered ..............................var. chiotica

  2. Spines, especially at their base, thicker than in var. chiotica, in mature fruits their base removed from margin of coils by -l-t of the radius of the coil; margin of coil emarginate; peduncles        1-2 -flowered ..................................................var. aculeata