Medicago polymorphaL.

bur clover

WFO wfo-0000213460 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Medicago polymorpha, photographed by Quentin Groom
fig. a Quentin Groom, CC0 1.0 / 2022-05-16 / obs. 198294129
Medicago polymorpha, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. b Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198316333
Medicago polymorpha, photographed by carnifex
fig. c carnifex, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202640264
Medicago polymorpha, photographed by Garth Harwood
fig. d Garth Harwood, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194070301
Medicago polymorpha, photographed by Chuck Wilson
fig. e Chuck Wilson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 196639453
Medicago polymorpha, photographed by Humber Alberto
fig. f Humber Alberto, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194346284
Medicago polymorpha, photographed by Chuck Wilson
fig. g Chuck Wilson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195510935
Medicago polymorpha, photographed by Humber Alberto
fig. h Humber Alberto, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194300058

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 1,791 observations

Peak flowering in Apr, from 1,791 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 164 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Medica apiculata (Willd.) Greene
  • Medica bimuricata Moench
  • Medica denticulata (Willd.) Greene
  • Medica pentacycla (DC.) Bubani
  • Medica polymorpha (L.) Scop.
  • Medica reticulata (Benth.) Bubani
  • Medicago aculeata Gaertn.
  • Medicago apiculata Willd.
  • Medicago apiculata var. confinis W.D.J.Koch
  • Medicago apiculata var. legionensis Gand.
  • Medicago berteroana Moris
  • Medicago bimuricata Retz. ex Steud.
  • Medicago canescens Graham
  • Medicago caspia Gruner ex Boiss.
  • Medicago caspica Jacq. ex Spreng.
  • Medicago catalonica Urb.
  • Medicago ciliaris Savi
  • Medicago confinis (W.D.J.Koch) J.M.Black
  • Medicago conica Schkuhr
  • Medicago cyrenaea Maire & Weiller
  • Medicago cyrenaica Maire & Weiller
  • Medicago denticulata Boiss.
  • Medicago denticulata Willd.
  • Medicago denticulata subsp. lappacea (Desr.) Ball

and 140 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.