Melilotus officinalis

Melilotus officinalis, before called Trigonella officinalis, “Sweet yellow clover” in English and “Mélilot jaune” in French, belongs to the Fabaceae botanical family.

Native from Europe to eastern Asia, is a herb 1.2 to 1.8 m high that grows in grassy fields and on roadsides.

It was used as livestock feed and as a drought-tolerant cover crop to improve poor soils.

It stems and flowers are used in folk medicine as infusion to treat sleeplessness, tension, neuralgia, palpitations, varicose veins, painful congestive menstruation, and in the prevention of thrombosis, flatulence and intestinal disorders. Externally, to treat eye inflammations, rheumatic pains, swollen joints, severe bruising, boils and erysipelas.

Its main constituents are coumarins, melilotin, phenolic acids, flavonoids (robinin), steroids, saponins, volatile oils, fats, triterpenes, carbohydrates, sugar, anthraquinone glycosides, mucilage, tannin, bis hydroxycoumarin, choline, alcohols, uric acid etc.

• English name Melilot
• French name Mélilot