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Melilotus
Also called Sweet Clover, Melilots, Melilot, Melilot, Sweet Clover, Melilots And Sweetclovers, Sweet Clovers
Sweetclover (Melilotus) is a genus of annual, biennial and perennial clover-like herbs, such as white and yellow sweet clover, grown as forage, green manure and wildflowers. It thrives in open, sunny ground and tolerates poor soils.
Melilotus, known as melilot or sweet clover, is a genus of legumes in the family Fabaceae, native to Europe, Asia, and Africa. The genus is closely related to Trifolium (clovers). Several species are common grassland plants and weeds of cultivated ground, and some species are now found worldwide as naturalised plants.
The scientific and English names both derive from Greek melílōtos from méli (honey), and lōtos (lotus), via Latin melilōtos and Old French mélilot. The alternative name "sweet clover" varies in orthography, also cited as sweet-clover and sweetclover. Other names include "kumoniga", from the Cumans.
Melilotus species are eaten by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species, such as those of the genus Coleophora, including C. frischella and C. trifolii.
White Melilot · Annual yellow sweetclover · Yellow sweetclover
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Melilotus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
