ALFALFA
Medicago sativa
COMMON NAMES: Lucern, buffalo herb.
FEATURES: Alfalfa is native to Asia and did not reach North America until around 1850 or 1860. This
deep-growing plant is seen from Maine to Virginia and westward to the Pacific coast in the United States.
The Native Americans adapted alfalfa quickly for human use as well as for animals. In England and
South Africa it is called buffalo herb.
This is a perennial, herbaceous plant, with two stems. Leaflets: three-toothed above. Flowers: violet.
Calyx: five-toothed. Corolla: papilionaceous, six lines long. Stamens: nine united and one free. Pod:
spirally coiled and without spines. The small, violet-purple or bluish flowers bloom from June until
August. In some regions it is cut every month as cultivated food for both man and animal.
The organic salt of alfalfa is among the richest known, the depth and spread of its roots enabling it to
absorb its valuable nutrition as far as 125 feet below the earth’s surface.
USES: Alfalfa was discovered by the Arabs and is one of the first known herbs. They called it the Father
of all Foods. It is only in recent years that we moderns are rediscovering its valuable nutritive properties,
which include organic minerals of calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium, plus all the known
vitamins, including vitamin K and the recently discovered vitamin B 8 and vitamin P.
It is helpful for every condition of the body, whether it be maintaining or regaining health, as the
contents are balanced for complete absorption. It may be used by itself or blended with other herbal teas
with or between meals.
Claudia V. James (1963) mentions that South African stock farmers have used it in feed to improve the
beauty of ostrich feathers and that cows gave richer milk, chickens laid more often, with the food content
of a better quality. A turkey farm in California has better stock after including alfalfa as part of the diet.