Alfalfa
Medicago sativa
Family · Fabaceae · Harmless
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The most cultivated forage crop in the world, sown for thousands of years and gone feral on any verge. It is known by its corkscrew-coiled pod, which no other native legume matches.
Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Town and roadside
Also known aslucerne, purple medick
How to tell it
Three elongated leaflets toothed only at the tip, the middle one on a longer stalk. Purple-blue flowers in short tight clusters. The pod coils in two or three complete turns, like a spring, and that is the definitive sign.
What it is confused with
Red clover
Trifolium pratense
Both have three leaflets and purple flowers. Clover makes a dense round head and hides its pod; alfalfa makes loose clusters and its pod coils in a clearly visible spiral.
Open sheet →What it is for
First-rate fodder and a nitrogen-fixing green manure. The sprouted seeds are eaten in salad, a modern use. The raw adult plant is not human food: it is tough and contains saponins.
Traditionally used as food. This is not permission to eat it.