Bituminous bitumen

Inflorescence: side view.

Inflorescence: cenital view.

Fruits (green and mature).

Mature fruits.

Bituminous bituminaria, popularly called stinking clover or tedera (Canary Islands), is a species of the Fabaceae family.

Description

It is a perennial plant with a 20-100 cm stem, more or less pubescent. Its Leaves, which exhale a characteristic smell of bitumen, are imparipinnate with 3 petiolate leaflets; leaflets of highly variable shapes and provided with hairs and glands. Long pedunculated inflorescence, with a dense head. Corolla blue-violet, rarely purple surrounded by a bristly five-tailed calyx. The fruit is an ovoid monosperm legume of about 1/2cm, very spiny and hairy, provided with an arched, wide and flattened beak, about twice as long as the body of the fruit.

Distribution and habitat

This representative of the genus Bituminaria is native throughout the Mediterranean Basin and the Canary Islands. It is also true in non-desert North Africa and, towards the East, as far as the Caucasus. Present in India and islands of the Indian Ocean (ex.gr.Mauritius).

In the Canary Islands, two infraspecific taxa are recognized:

• B. bituminosa var. albomarginata: endemic Lanzarote and adjacent islets.
• B. bituminosa var. crassiuscula: endemic of the Teide summits.

These populations are well separated morphologically from the rest of the Canaries and the Peninsula, which correspond to the typical variety, B. bituminous var. bituminous.

Inhabits thickets and pre-forest, pre-steppe and steppe formations, from sea level to 2000 masl. Very common on roadsides and highways.

Uses

It has several current and potential uses:

• Aliens
• Filtration of soils contaminated by heavy or degraded metals
• Synthesis of furanocumarins (psoraleno and angelicina), compounds of wide pharmaceutical interest.
• In traditional Canarian medicine, its crushed leaves are used to cut bleeding.

Taxonomy

Bituminosa bituminosa was first described by Carlos Linnaeus as Psoralea bituminosa and published in Species Plantarum, vol. 2 P. 763[2], 1753 and later transferred to the genus Bituminaria by Charles Howard Stirton and published in Bothalia, vol. 13(3–4), p. 318, 1981.

Etymology

• Bituminaria: generic name derived from Latin vocablos b/25070/tūměn, bitumen and āria, suffix indicating possession, relation, resemblance, by the smell of bitun of the species.
• bituminosa: Latin borrowed b/25070/tūmπnōsus, -a,, bituminoso.

Accepted infraspecific taxa

• Bituminaria bituminosa var. brachycarpa (Feldmann) Danin, Willdenowia 28: 141, 1998

Sinonimia

• Aspalthium bituminosum (L.) Fourr.
• Psoralea bituminosa L.
• Psoralea palaestina Gouan
• Psoralea plum Rchb.
• Psoralea pumila Sennen, in sched., Nom. nud.
• Aspalthium palaestinum (Gouan) Medik.
• Lotodes bituminosum (L.) Kuntze
• Rhynchodium bituminosum (L.) C. Presl

Vernacular names

• T-shirt, t-shirt, t-shirt, t-shirt, t-shirt, t-shirt, t-shirt, t-shirt, grease, grease, grease, grease, grease