Flowers and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Canberra, ACT

Flowers. Photo: Richard Old, Alberta Native Plants Society, Canada

Pods. Photo: Richard Old, Alberta Native Plants Society, Canada

Line drawing by Hans de Vries (with permission)

Common Name

Lucerne, Alfalfa

Family

Fabaceae

Notes

Introduced perennial forb to 1.2m tall. Leaves alternating up the stems, composed of 3 leaflets, each 0.5-2.8cm long, 3-15mm wide, upper surface hairless or hairy, lower surface hairy, toothed towards the tip, tips blunt, often with a straight point. Flowers pea-shaped, purple to violet, rarely pink to white or yellow, with 5 petals, 2 almost joined together. Flowers in oval racemes of 7-35 flowers, the stalks arising from the bases of the leaves.

Description and photo in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 404

PlantNET description:   http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Medicago~sativa