Medicago sativaL.

Alfalfa

WFO wfo-0000213468 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Medicago sativa, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. a Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205531065
Medicago sativa, photographed by Andreas Stiller
fig. b Andreas Stiller, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205791570
Medicago sativa, photographed by Pete Bradshaw
fig. c Pete Bradshaw, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204824679
Medicago sativa, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. d Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203289303
Medicago sativa, photographed by Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas
fig. e Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203238352
Medicago sativa, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. f Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202756122
Medicago sativa, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. g Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202815513
Medicago sativa, photographed by Michael Grundner
fig. h Michael Grundner, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203307125

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 5,459 observations

Peak flowering in Jun, from 5,459 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 95 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Medica legitima Greene
  • Medica sativa (L.) Mill.
  • Medica sativa Lam.
  • Medica sativa f. alba Benke
  • Medicago afghanica (Bordz.) Vassilcz.
  • Medicago angulata Láng ex Neilr.
  • Medicago asiatica Sinskaya
  • Medicago asiatica subsp. geratica Sinskaya
  • Medicago asiatica subsp. khivinica Sinskaya
  • Medicago asiatica subsp. sinensis Sinskaya
  • Medicago asiatica subsp. turcomanica (Bordakov) Sinskaya
  • Medicago asiatica subsp. turkestanica (Vilbouchevich) Sinskaya
  • Medicago caerulea subsp. pilifera (Urb.) Vassilcz.
  • Medicago caerulea var. pilifera (Urb.) Vassilcz.
  • Medicago cirtensis Rouy
  • Medicago contorta Gilib.
  • Medicago eusativa Sinskaya
  • Medicago falcata subsp. glomerata (Balb.) Soják
  • Medicago glomerata Balb.
  • Medicago glutinosa M.Bieb.
  • Medicago glutinosa f. glomerata (Balb.) Urb.
  • Medicago glutinosa f. grandiflora Sinskaya
  • Medicago glutinosa subsp. glomerata (Balb.) Nyman
  • Medicago glutinosa subsp. polychroa (Grossh.) Sinskaya

and 71 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.