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Black Medick

Black Medick

Medicago lupulina

Identify the Black Medick from a photo and log your finds with Florapass.

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How common: Common

Alien species

Black Medick is a small, low plant that looks much like a yellow-flowered clover. It has soft, three-part leaves and tiny round heads of yellow flowers in summer. You’ll most often notice it in open, sunny places and along paths and lawns across much of the temperate world.

Did you know?

  • It is an annual plant that completes its life in one season.
  • Often mistaken for small yellow clovers because of its clover-like leaves and flower heads.

About the species

Identification

Low, trailing to slightly upright stems, usually around 15–20 cm. Each leaf has three small oval leaflets; the tips are blunt with a tiny notch and a few small teeth near the tip, and the leaves feel softly hairy. Many very small yellow flowers are packed into little rounded heads. After flowering, small pods form with tiny brown seeds (about 2 mm). Can be confused with small yellow clovers; note the notched leaflet tips and the plant’s more lax, trailing habit. Flowers in Finland from June to September.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

meadow, yards and roadsides

Flowering

Jun–Sep

About the habitat

Likes open, sunny and often dry or disturbed places such as lawns, roadsides, field edges and waste ground.

Sources

Photo: Dan Johnson, CC BY 4.0 https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/5938052947

Text: Pinkka: Verso- ja leviäintunnistus - Kaikki leviäimet, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39025

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurmimailanen

See also