Medicago sativa

Alfalfa

Family: Fabaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Alfalfa is a naturalized perennial herb found in California's Central Valley, Great Basin, and Panamint Mountains in disturbed and agricultural areas at elevations below 2,450 meters. Flowering from April to October, this plant produces violet to yellow-green flowers in compact spike-like clusters with 8 to 30 blooms. Growing with generally erect stems 20 to 80 centimeters tall that are slightly hairy or smooth, it has distinctive compound leaves with narrow lanceolate to obovate leaflets. Its leaves feature lanceolate stipules that may be entire or sharply toothed, with individual leaflets 10 to 29 millimeters long. The fruit develops as a coiled or occasionally straight leathery pod that is light to dark yellow-brown in color.

Habitat: Disturbed, agricultural areas

Bloom period: Apr-Oct

Elevation: < 2450 m

Bioregions: CA-FP, GB, DMtns (Panamint Range)

California counties: Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Mono, Orange, Riverside, Ventura, San Bernardino, Santa Cruz, Alameda, Colusa, Kern, Fresno, Tulare, Inyo, Imperial, San Mateo, Kings, Santa Clara, Modoc, San Diego, Yolo, San Luis Obispo, El Dorado, Sacramento, Solano, Contra Costa, Butte, Lassen, Stanislaus, Plumas, Tuolumne, Siskiyou, Glenn, Napa, Humboldt, Trinity, Calaveras, Marin, Yuba, Mendocino, Placer, Nevada, Lake, San Francisco, Monterey

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.