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Alfalfa - Medicago sativa
Alfalfa is edible, medicinal, and makes a great garden mulch!
Use alfalfa as a garden mulch that composting your garden to feed your soil while helping to retain water and protect the plants roots and soil. Also it's edible and medicinal! If the plants used are fresh, they compost feeding the soil while providing the benefits of a mulch at the same time!
How to Identify Alfalfa
Alfalfa is an introduced plant from Eurasia that was planted as a forage crop for livestock that is now naturalized across Canada and the United States. It's a member of the pea of legume family, Fabaceae. Members of this family form a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen fixing bacteria and increase soil fertility where they grow. Other members of the family include clovers, sweet clovers, and lupines.
The leaves are divided into 3 elliptic to oblong leaflets that are sharply toothed on the upper half and slightly hairy.
The flowers are deep purple to bluish, rarely white, and pea-like. Alfalfa grows from 30 cm to 1 m tall and is very deeply rooted.
Distribution of Alfalfa
Alfalfa is found throughout the Okanagan and across North America at low to mid elevations often along roadside and in disturbed areas and in cultivated fields.
Edible Uses for Alfalfa
The young tender leaves have been added to salads and sandwiches. Dried, powdered leaves have been sprinkled on foods as a supplement because alfalfa is a mineral-rich food. Sprouted seeds are also eaten. Alfalfa is rich in vitamins A, B, C, E, K, and P, calcium, potassium, phosphorous, iron, and protein. Alfalfa is also used to make a tea.
Medicinal Uses for Alfalfa
Alfalfa flowers, leaves, and seeds have been used medicinally. The tea has been used by people who are recovering from an illness or surgery. It is said to stimulate appetite, weight gain, urination, and to stop bleeding.
Interesting
The peeled root can be used as a toothbrush.
Caution
Alfalfa is used as a forage for livestock, but in large quantities it can cause the breakdown of red blood cells and bloating. Large amounts of alfalfa seed can cause a blood-clotting disorder in humans called pancytopenia. Alfalfa also interferes with vitamin E metabolism, and alfalfa sprouts contain a non-protein amino acid canavanine which it potentially toxic and could cause a recurrence of lupus.
*Please consume wild plants at your own risk! Consult multiple reliable sources before consuming any wild plants! This video is for information and entertainment only!*
References
MacKinnon, A. Edible and Medicinal Plants of Canada. Lone Pine Media Productions (BC) Ltd. 2014.
Parish, R.; Coupe, R.; and Lloyd, D. Plants of the Inland Northwest and Southern Interior British Columbia. BC Ministry of Forests and Lone Pine Publishing. 2018
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