ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The rough-haired jaw clover (Lotus hirsutus, Syn.: Dorycnium hirsutum), also called long-haired jaw clover or hairy jaw clover, is a plant species from the genus horn clover (Lotus) in the subfamily of butterfly flowers (Faboideae) within the family of legume frogs (Fabaceae).

Description

Vegetative characteristics
The rough-haired cheek clover grows as a richly branched and persistent herbaceous plant or as a semi-evergreen half-bush and reaches heights of 20 to 50 centimeters. The plant develops from a bud that overwinters above the ground. Because of its strong hair, the plant has a whitish-silvery appearance. Stems, foliage and chalice are provided with up to 2 millimetres long protruding hairs (trichomes).

The alternately arranged foliage leaves are seated. The lowest leaflet pair of the five-fold leaf spreads appears like two secondary leaves. The rhachis is very short or missing. The usually pointed or pointed, short-stemmed partial leaves are egg-shaped to inverted egg-shaped, more or less hairy and all-round. The two real side leaves are minimal. However, the first pair of leaflets is interpreted by some authors as leaf-like secondary leaves.

Generative characteristics
The flowering period runs from May to July. Few (five to ten) flowers are combined in a dense, armpit and head-shaped inflorescence.

The twitty flowers are zygomorphic, up to 2 centimeters long and five-fold with a double flower shell. The five white to light pink crown leaves stand together in the typical shape of the butterfly flowers. In contrast to herbaceous jaw clover, long-haired jaw clover does not have the upper ends of the two wings fused together. The long-haired, narrow cup-shaped, partly reddish chalice has quite long and peeky tips.

The bulbous, two-part and beaked, reddish, egg-shaped to ellipsoid, almost bare legume is, like the permanent chalice, 8 to 12 millimeters long and contains up to six seeds. The small, shiny and slightly speckled, smooth, orange-brown seeds are slightly kidney-shaped to elliptical at a length of 1.5 to 2 millimeters.

The number of chromosomes is 2n = 14.

Occurrence
The rough-haired cheek clover is common around the Mediterranean Sea (up to the Southern Alps), in Portugal, and Western Asia. Within Europe, there are locations for Portugal, Spain, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Sicily, Corsica, France, Italy, former Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Crete, Aegean Islands, Cyprus and Turkey.

It thrives best on dry, rocky slopes. It mainly thrives in the Colline altitude, but occurs up to the Montane altitude.

Taxonomy
It was first published in 1753 under the name (basic) Lotus hirsutus by Carl von Linné in Species Plantarum, page 775. The new combination to Dorycnium hirsutum wu