NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Yesterday afternoon's visit to the clump of Sickle Medick on Epsom Downs started an interesting online debate. I had posted photographs of the plant(s) on the Surrey Botanical Society Facebook group which elicited responses from several botanists, including Ian Kitching who suggested that the plants could be, in fact, yellow-flowered Sand Lucerne. He then added that there might well be Sickle Medick also present, having had a look through my images of the flowers and fruits. The simple truth is that I had not been a thorough enough botanist, and checking the photographs again it was obvious that a larger plant, with a much different jizz, was present. I needed to go back... and did so this morning, delighted to find both Brian and Linda Pitkin already present. They too had been inspired to get to the bottom of this Medicago conundrum. The bottom line is that there ARE two sub-species present - both Sickle Medick (M sativa ssp falcata) with yellow flowers and fruits that are...

Sickle Medick (Medicago sativa ssp falcata) is a sub-species of the sativa family (the other two being Lucerne and Sand Medick). It is supposedly a native of East Anglia and can sparingly be found in a naturalised state in the south-east of England. This afternoon, after learning about a clump on nearby Epsom Downs, I went and took a look. As you can see from the image above, it is very close to the main grandstands - and, from the image below, also very close to the road! The colour of the flowers help to differentiate this species from Lucerne (which are purple). Sand Lucerne also can exhibit yellow flowers, but can also show a bewildering palette, including a dense blue that is almost black! It is then that you need to check the fruits: on Sickle Medick they are curved (below) rather than spiralled. I have since been informed by a far more experienced and knowledgable botanist than I that this is, in fact, Sand Lucerne (varia). And now the suggestion is that Sickle Medick (f...