White sweet clover
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White sweet clover ( Melilotus albus ) |
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The White sweet clover ( Melilotus albus ), also white sweet clover or Bokharaklee , is a plant in the family of legumes (Fabaceae).
description
Appearance and leaf
The white sweet clover is a summer green, one to two year hibernating herbaceous plant and reaches heights of 30 to 150 centimeters, rarely higher. The upright stem is mostly branched, it is short haired in the upper area and often reddish, it later becomes lignified quite heavily and reaches a thickness of up to 2 centimeters at the bottom.
The alternate leaves are arranged in a petiole and a leaf blade. The leaf blade is pinnate in three parts. As with other sweet clover species, the middle uppermost leaflet has a longer stalk than the lateral ones. With a length of usually 1 to 2 centimeters, the partial leaflets are oblong, obovate, with a truncated or rounded upper end. Each leaflet has six to twelve pairs of lateral nerves and just as many, often indistinct teeth. The stipules are usually entire.
Inflorescence, flower and fruit
The flowering period extends from June to October. The racemose inflorescence contains up to 40 or 80 flowers. The flower stalk is 1 to 2 millimeters long. The flowers are nodding.
The hermaphrodite flowers are zygomorphic and five-fold with a double flower envelope . The white petals are 4 to 5 millimeters long.
The whitish legume is wrinkled and wrinkled; it is 3 to 3.5 millimeters long and 2 to 2.5 millimeters wide, obliquely egg-shaped, blunt, with a very short stylus remnant, glabrous and finally blackish.
Chromosome number
The number of chromosomes is 2n = 16.
ecology
The white sweet clover has roots up to 70 centimeters deep. The pollination is done by many insects such as bees , flies or butterflies . The fruits are spread out by shaking.
General distribution
The white sweet clover is a continental floral element; in Western, Northern and Central Europe, its indigeness is doubtful. Its area extends from Spain, central Italy , and Greece in the south to Great Britain and Finland in the north; further east to Western Siberia , Tibet and the Middle East . He is naturalized in North America and Australia. In Europe, the white sweet clover was cultivated as a medicinal plant and as an ornamental plant in the 16th and 17th centuries , and today it is widespread as a fodder plant worldwide; Forms low in coumarin have meanwhile been bred for this use .
Occurrence
The white sweet clover is common in Europe. In parts of Western Asia and North America, it is considered a neophyte . The white sweet clover was also introduced as an archaeophyte in Germany and Northern Europe in the course of human settlement .
The white sweet clover often grows together with the real sweet clover in dry and fresh ruderal places . In Central Europe it is a character species of the Echio-Melilotetum from the association Dauco-Melilotion. The white sweet clover occurs on roadsides, rubble sites, railway systems, gravel pits and xerothermal lawns. It prefers base-rich and nutrient-rich soils .
Locations and distribution in Central Europe
It is possible that the white sweet clover was originally only native to the Mediterranean region , southeast Europe and Central Asia . It appears to have entered Central Europe along the course of the rivers from around the 15th century. It has spread rapidly, especially along the railway lines. As a raw soil pioneer and as a gravel stabilizer, it is occasionally sown for "soil improvement". It is absent in the Central European lowlands and in areas with a lime-poor subsoil in smaller areas; otherwise it occurs frequently in Central Europe .
The white sweet clover thrives best on nutrient-rich, dry, somewhat calcareous, deep and therefore mostly loamy soils that can be stony, it also thrives on sand , gravel and gravel .
The white sweet clover colonizes weed communities on dry wasteland , railway areas, gravel pits and quarries. In the Alps it rises occasionally to altitudes of 1500 meters; in the Allgäu Alps in Bavaria near the Höflealpe in the Mahdtal northwest of Riezlern up to an altitude of 1350 meters.
use
Occasionally white sweet clover is also used for green manure .
Others
The white sweet clover has an underground turnip that is said to be edible. It has not yet been sufficiently clarified whether this is slightly poisonous, as is the case with real sweet clover .
literature
- Eckehart J. Jäger, Klaus Werner (Ed.): Excursion flora from Germany . Founded by Werner Rothmaler. 10th edited edition. tape 4 : Vascular Plants: Critical Volume . Elsevier, Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Munich / Heidelberg 2005, ISBN 3-8274-1496-2 .
- Ruprecht Düll , Herfried Kutzelnigg : Pocket dictionary of plants in Germany. A botanical-ecological excursion companion to the most important species . 6th, completely revised edition. Quelle & Meyer, Wiebelsheim 2005, ISBN 3-494-01397-7 .
- Peter Sitte , Elmar Weiler , Joachim W. Kadereit , Andreas Bresinsky , Christian Körner : Textbook of botany for universities . Founded by Eduard Strasburger . 35th edition. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg 2002, ISBN 3-8274-1010-X .
- Gustav Hegi : Illustrated flora of Central Europe. Volume IV. 3 1st edition. Munich 1964, pp. 1245-1246. (Section description)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Erich Oberdorfer : Plant-sociological excursion flora for Germany and neighboring areas. 8th edition. Stuttgart, Verlag Eugen Ulmer, 2001, ISBN 3-8001-3131-5 , p. 587.
- ^ Oskar Sebald, Siegmund Seybold, Georg Philippi (ed.): The fern and flowering plants of Baden-Württemberg. Volume 3: Special part (Spermatophyta, subclass Rosidae): Droseraceae to Fabaceae. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-8001-3314-8 , pp. 395-396.
- ↑ a b c d Dietmar Aichele, Heinz-Werner Schwegler: The flowering plants of Central Europe. 2nd Edition. Volume 2: Yew plants to butterfly flowering plants , Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-440-08048-X .
- ↑ Erhard Dörr, Wolfgang Lippert : Flora of the Allgäu and its surroundings. Volume 2, IHW-Verlag, Eching near Munich, 2004, ISBN 3-930167-61-1 , pp. 122–123.
Web links
- Melilotus albus Medik., White sweet clover. In: FloraWeb.de.
- White sweet clover . In: BiolFlor, the database of biological-ecological characteristics of the flora of Germany.
- Profile and distribution map for Bavaria . In: Botanical Information Hub of Bavaria .
- Melilotus albus medic. In: Info Flora , the national data and information center for Swiss flora . Retrieved November 15, 2015.
- Distribution in the northern hemisphere according to Eric Hultén .
- Thomas Meyer: Data sheet with identification key and photos at Flora-de: Flora von Deutschland (old name of the website: Flowers in Swabia ).
