Medicago orbicularis
Medicago orbicularis
Paralık
Annual, 10-40 cm, glabrous, very rarely glandular-hairy. Leaflets normally 7-12 x 10 mm, obovate to strictly cuneate, mostly retuse with a small terminal tooth; stipules laciniate. Peduncle 1-2-flowered, longer than petiole. Flowers 3-4 mm. Calyx teeth about as long as tube. Corolla 2 x calyx or less. Young fruit protruding sideways from calyx, in a long gradually contracted spiral. Fruit large, lenticular or discoid, always spineless, 5-10 mm high, glabrous, glabrescent, or covered with glandular hairs, soft when mature; coils 3-7, thin, especially at margins, diam. of middle coils 8-20 mm; surface of each coil with a net of anastomosing radial veins, often markedly thickened at margin of coil, without submarginal vein. Seeds 3-6 in each coil. 2n=16. Heavy soils, rocky slopes, cultivated and fallow fields, etc. s.l.-900 m.
Mediterranean area, Syrian Desert, N. Iraq, Iran, Turkestan.
