Anagyris foetida (English common name stinking bean trefoil), is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae, forming a malodorous, Summer-deciduousPhytognosis http://regenerag.org/blog/2018/4/12/anagyris-foetida-an-underutilized-mediterranean-nitrogen-fixing-shrub Retrieved 30/12/22.Francisco J Valtueña, Ana Ortega-Olivencia, Tomás Rodríguez-Riaño and Josefa López "Reproductive biology in Anagyris foetida L. (Leguminosae), an autumn–winter flowering and ornithophilous Mediterranean shrub" Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, Volume 157, Issue 3, July 2008, pp. 519–532, shrub or small tree 2–4 m in height with green twigs bearing grey-green trifoliate leaves clad beneath in silvery hairs. The red-tinged, yellow, Laburnum-like flowers are borne on the previous season's growth and are pollinated mainly by birdsEncyclopedie Biologique - XXV (25) P. Fournier ( Professor Canon Paul-Victor Fournier ) Le Livre des Plantes Medicinales et Veneneuses de France pub. Editions Lechevalier - Paris 1947 ed. Paul Lechevalier, Tome I, pp. 81-82. and bees - notably the buff-tailed bumblebee.The large spot of red pigmentation on the flowers is located on the exterior of the standard, the interior of which bears, in turn, many small, deep red spots. Polunin, O. and Smythies B.E. Flowers of South-West Europe: a field guide Oxford University Press 1973 , p. 221.
Scientific Name The genus name Anagyris is a compound of the Ancient Greek prefix ανα (ana-) "up / back again / backwards" and γῦρος (gŷros), "ring" / "round", giving the meaning "bent back into a ring" - in reference to the curved pods of the plant, while the Latin specific name foetida is the feminine form of the adjective foetidus, meaning "stinking" or "smelly" - in reference to the foul stench of the bruised leaves, which is said to resemble that of spoiled beans.Quattrocchi, Umberto (2012). CRC World dictionary of medicinal and poisonous plants: common names, scientific names, eponyms, synonyms and etymology. Vol. I, A–C, pub. CRC Press Taylor and Francis Group. p. 270, heading Anagyris L. Fabaceae (Thermopsideae).
Common names The shrub has a wide variety of vernacular names in the languages spoken around the Mediterranean, most of them alluding to its foul smell and poisonous properties. Into the former category fall the French bois puant and the Italian legno puzzo – both meaning "stinkwood" - and the Spanish hediondo meaning simply "stinker". Into the latter category (poison-related names) fall two overlapping sub-categories: the first comprising names referencing the similarity in appearance of Anagyris to the carob tree, with its similarly large and pendent pods, and contrasting it unfavourably with that edible species, and the second, pejorative names containing the names of animals perceived as being in some way noxious. A purely carob-related name is the Italian carrubazzo meaning "bad carob", the suffix -azzo providing the pejorative sense, as in ragazzo now "boy", but with the original sense of "lout", "street urchin" or "slave".Dizionaro etimologico Italiano https://www.etimo.it/?term=Ragazzo&find=Cerca Retrieved at 10.14 on Thursday 26/1/23. Carob-and-animal names include the Arabic kharroub kelb / karrûb el klâb "carob of the dog", kharroub el-khinzir "carob of the pig" and kharroub el-maiz "carob of the goat". Animal-and-bean names include the French fève de loup "bean of the wolf" and the Maltese fula tal-klieb and Arabic fûl el klâb, both meaning "bean of the dog". Of dog-related plant names it may be noted that in Europe these generally convey a perceived inferiority of some sort when compared to plants fit for humans e.g. a dog rose is scentless and dog's mercury (as opposed to the true mercury plant) is poisonous.Mabey, Richard, Flora Britannica, Sinclair-Stevenson, London, 1996, pp. 256–57. Likewise in the Arab world the dog is deemed a dirty animal which feeds on carrion and other unclean things and is itself unfit for human consumption - whence the Arabic language insults kelb and ibn al kalb ("dog" and "son of a dog", respectively).List of Arabic language insults https://theculturetrip.com/middle-east/united-arab-emirates/articles/13-hilarious-arabic-swear-words-and-phrases/ Retrieved at 12.07 on Thursday 26/1/23.Egyptian Arabic insults https://arabic.desert-sky.net/coll_insult.html Retrieved at 13.08 on Thursday 26/1/23. Regarding the Arab conception of the "carob of the pig", it may further be noted that the pig is the only animal the meat of which is explicitly condemned as haram in the Quran (Quran 2:173) (see also Islamic dietary laws).
Distribution The plant has a circum-Mediterranean distribution in Europe and North Africa, with extensions into Turkey, Iran and the Arabian peninsula.Kew Plants of the World Online: Anagyris foetida https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:473968-1 Retrieved at 17.50 on 28/11/22.
Habitat A. foetida is a tropical or subtropical relict species from the Tertiary period ( a status suggested (i.a.) by its unusually large and heavy seeds),Francisco J Valtueña, Ana Ortega-Olivencia and Rodríguez-Riaño Tomás "Germination and seed bank biology in some Iberian populations of Anagyris foetida L. (Leguminosae)" April 2008 Plant Systematics and Evolution 275(3):231–243 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rodriguez-Riano-Tomas/publication/225357180_Germination_and_seed_bank_biology_in_some_Iberian_populations_of_Anagyris_foetida_L_Leguminosae/links/0fcfd50a21249dccc2000000/Germination-and-seed-bank-biology-in-some-Iberian-populations-of-Anagyris-foetida-L-Leguminosae.pdf?origin=publication_detail Retrieved at 10.23 on Friday 16/12/22. which suggests that its original homeland may have lain somewhere in the refugium encompassing the Balkans, Türkiye and the Black Sea coastal region of the Caucasus.Milne, Richard I. and Abbott, Richard John "The origin and evolution of Tertiary relict flora" December 2002 Advances in Botanical Research 38:281–314 Fig. 1, p. 283. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Arvind-Singh-21/post/Pre-glacial-Asia-to-Europe-plant-migration-path-via-the-Balkans/attachment/5a623b5eb53d2f0bba4c6e8b/AS%3A584584299298821%401516387166496/download/91.MilneAbbott_AdvBotRes_2002.pdf Retrieved 27/12/22. The picture is complicated by the fact that it is also an archaeophyte (ancient introduction - original homeland uncertain). In France, it is a rare and protected species now found only in coastal départements, although it once grew also in Alpes-Maritimes where it is now extinct. It grows in calcareous soils in seasonally arid areas exposed to the hottest summer sun, favouring rocky limestone escarpments (as currently at Mont Faron), often among the ruins of castles and abbeys (see also monastic garden), suggesting that it may be a relic of cultivation for medicinal purposes or even to furnish an arrow poison for military use.Annales de la Société des Sciences Naturelles et d'Archéologie de Toulon et de du Var Tome 69 Fascicule 1 – 1er semestre Année 2017, pub. La Société des Sciences Naturelles et d'Archéologie de Toulon et du Var (SSNATV), , p. 17, section: "Botanique", author Jean-Claude Ory https://www.ssnatv.fr/component/phocadownload/category/173-annales?download=1140:annales-2017-tome-69-fascicule-1 Retrieved 14/12/22.
Adaptations to growth in Winter and early Spring Summer leaf-fall
Anagyris foetida is an ultra drought-tolerant member of the Fabaceae family. The large shrub originates in the Mediterranean Basin. The plant illustrates one of the best drought-resisting strategies of mediterranean flora: the plant keeps its leaves through autumn, winter and spring, then it goes completely deciduous in summer, becoming dormant and highly resistant to drought. This pattern of aestivation (summer dormancy) is more characteristic of many Mediterranean bulbs than it is of the majority of Mediterranean shrubs, which have often adopted the different strategy of sclerophylly to cope with high Summer temperatures and drought.Rix, Martyn (1983). Growing Bulbs. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press. .
Pollination by birds Canon Fournier noted as early as 1947 that A. foetida was primarily bird-pollinated. This was substantiated by Ortega-Olivencia et al. who carried out a study of the pollinators visiting two populations of the plant in Southwest Spain over a three-year period and recorded their findings in a paper of 2005."First Confirmation of a Native Bird-Pollinated Plant in Europe" Ana Ortega-Olivencia, Tomás Rodríguez-Riaño, Francisco J. Valtueña, Josefa López, Juan A. Devesa and Jane Memmott, Oikos Vol. 110, No. 3 (Sep., 2005), pp. 578-590 (13 pages) Abstract viewable at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0030-1299.2005.13877.x Retrieved 9/12/22. Such bird-pollination (ornithophily) is, so far, unique among the thousands of plant species comprising the Flora of Europe. The avian pollinators recorded in the study were three passerine species: the Common chiffchaff, the Eurasian blackcap and the Sardinian warbler. Relevant in this context are the red markings on the flowers of A. foetida, red being a colour particularly noticeable by (and therefore attractive to) birds, with their tetrachromat vision. The authors offer the following plausible explanation for the unusual form of pollination which has evolved in the case of A. foetida: The negligible existence of insect visitors and pollinators of A. foetida flowers could be explained by the early flowering of this species during the autumn–winter, coinciding with the coolest and wettest months of the year (cold, high winds, almost daily mists that persist until nightfall, and above all, abundant rainfall). A complementary study of a similar kind undertaken by Haran et al. in Israel in 2018 revealed yet further bird species involved in the pollination of A. foetida, along with a single species which steals nectar from the flowers while seldom acting as a pollen vector."Specialist nectarivorous birds (Cinnyris osea) steal nectar whereas omnivorous birds are pollen transfer vectors of Anagyris foetida" Ron Haran, Ido Izhaki, Amots Dafni Journal of Pollination Ecology, 23(9), 2018, pp. 82-89 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ido-Izhaki/publication/325527432_Specialist_nectarivorous_birds_Cinnyris_osea_steal_nectar_whereas_omnivorous_birds_are_pollen_transfer_vectors_of_Anagyris_foetida/links/5b122a874585150a0a608d51/Specialist-nectarivorous-birds-Cinnyris-osea-steal-nectar-whereas-omnivorous-birds-are-pollen-transfer-vectors-of-Anagyris-foetida.pdf?origin=publication_detail Retrieved 9/12/22 In addition to the Common chiffchaff, the Eurasian Blackcap and the Sardinian Warbler the Israeli study documents another six pollinating species: the White-spectacled bulbul, the Spanish Sparrow, the Common whitethroat, the Lesser whitethroat, Rüppell's warbler and the Eastern Orphean warbler. The species found generally to operate as a nectar thief was the Palestine sunbird (in consequence of its longer bill), although even it could act as a pollinator, on occasion. As in Spain, bird pollination is explicable by the plant's flowering at a time when weather and temperatures are uncongenial to insect activity: the plant is almost the only shrub in the eastern Mediterranean region that flowers in winter.
Seed dispersal