Abstract
The genus Medicago comprises more than 60 species. Lesins and Gilles (1972) report 62 species, but some of them are interfertile and would be better defined as varieties. The native area of the genus is the Mediterranean Basin and the Middle East, but today it is dispersed all over the world. The genus can be divided into annuals and perennials, diploid and polyploid species. The basic chromosome number (x) is 7 or 8 so that the diploid species have 14 or 16 chromosomes. There are some autotetraploid species (2n = 32), and two species are hexaploid (2n = 48). Phylogenetic investigations have been carried out with chromosomal analysis (Mariani 1968) and more recently with isoenzymatic (Mariani et al. 1978; Quiros 1983) and restriction fragment length (Johnson and Palmer 1986) polymorphism.
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