Home Sweet Home                www.ars.usda.gov

Medicago sativa, more commonly known as alfalfa is a perennial plant usually grown by farmers and fed to livestock as hay or mixed with corn (click on "corn" for more information) to form silage. Alfalfa can grow up to one meter in length and looks similar to a clover with small clusters of purple flowers. The United States is the largest producer of alfalfa on Earth.

Classification:

 

   

   

Domain: Eukarya        Chromosomes are multiple and linear, Multicellular, have a   

                                    Have a nucleus,

Kingdom: Plantea       photosynthetic, share a freshwater algal ancestor, cell walls of cellulose,

                                    Alternation of generations

 Phylum: Anthophyta   seeds (ovules) are enclosed in carpels, produce flowers and fruits,

                                    Sporophtyes are large and nutritionally independent

 Class: Magnoliopsida  2 cotyledones, secondary growth, primary vascular bundles in a ring

Order: Fabales             single carpel that gives rise to the pod, compound leaves, 10-many stamen

Family: Fabaceae        (the pea family) bilaterally symmetrical flowers, legume fruits

Genus: Medicago        contains coumestans, and the phytoestrogens,          

Species: Medicago sativa  compound leaves with 3 leaflets and clusters of usually violet-blue

                                          flowers

 

Phylogenetic Tree:

The phylogenetic tree is based mainly off morphological characteristics related to Medicago sativa. An interesting point is how alfalfa is in the Fabaceae family (or the pea family). I was unaware of this fact until I created the phylogenetic tree.

To Top of Page