Flora of New Zealand Series

yellow sweet clover

Decumbent or erect biennial up to 1.5 m high; stems ± glabrous but sparsely hairy in upper parts. Lvs ± glabrous but sparsely hairy when young; petioles c. 5-25 mm long; leaflets narrowly to broadly elliptic or obovate, acute, obtuse or somewhat emarginate, mucronate, obtuse to cuneate at base, serrate, c. 10-25 mm long; stipules linear-lanceolate, entire. Racemes lax and slender, up to 20 cm long at fruiting; fls numerous. Peduncles > petioles. Calyx ± glabrous or sparsely hairy; calyx teeth mostly < tube, narrowly triangular. Corolla yellow, 4-6 mm long; wings > keel. Pod glabrous, transversely rugose, c. 3 mm long, 1-2-seeded; seeds light brown, 2-3 mm long.

N.: Gisborne City, Palmerston North, vicinity of Wellington City; S.: vicinity of Nelson City, Blenheim, C. Canterbury, C. Otago, vicinity of Gore.

Europe, Asia 1878

Dry waste places and coastal habitats.

FL Nov-Mar.

Poisonous (Connor 1977).

M. officinalis is distinguished from M. albus by the yellow corolla and the transversely rugose pods (Fig. 66). The common name melilot is sometimes also used for this sp. It has been previously known in N.Z. as M. altissimus and M. petitpiereana. Many early records of M. officinalis [e.g., Kirk, T., Trans. Proc. N.Z. Inst. 2: 137 (1870)] are based on misidentifications of M. indicus.