Slender annual up to 30 cm. Leaflets 3-6(-7) pairs, 5-15 x 0.5-3 mm, linear or oblong. Heads 2- to 6-flowered; peduncle about equalling the leaves. Corolla 3-5 mm. Legume 15-25 x 2.5-4 mm, curved so that the sinuses open on the concave edge; segments with orbicular sinuses and with long papillae on the seed-protuberance.
Hippocrepis ciliata is a shrub of the family of Fabaceae . It is native to the Mediterranean region.
Description:
It is a small annual cycle herb that lives in vacant fields and scrub clearings. It has leaves divided into many leaflets , all of them paired except for the apex, which has no partner. The flowers are yellow and grow on a peduncle . The fruits are the most characteristic part of the species . It is a legume that has a series of closed U-shaped strangles. This species differs from other species of the genus Hippocrepis because the legume is arched, so that the seeds are in the dorsal or external part, while inHippocrepis multisiliquosa , which is very similar, the fruit arches in the opposite direction and the seeds remain on the ventral or internal side. Flowering is spring .
Distribution and habitat:
It is distributed throughout the Mediterranean . It lives in annual meadows , vacant fields and sometimes in crops. In communities of therophytic habits .
This plant is useful.
