Scientific name: Lotus corniculatus L.
Common name: Bird's-foot-trefoil
Description
Habit: A hairless to sparsely hairy perennial, to 50 cm high.
Stems: Solid, spreading.
Leaves: Alternate, pinnate, with 5 oval leaflets, the lowest 2 at the leaf base and resembling stipules; true stipules minute.
Flowers: Yellow to orange or sometimes streaked with red, zygomorphic, hermaphrodite, 10-16 mm, stalkless, across in groups of 2-7 in umbels; calyx of 5 sepals fused into a tube, not enclosing the fruit, teeth closely pressed against the corolla when in bud; petals 5, 2 forming free wings, 2 are fused to form a lower keel and 1 conceals the stamens and carpel; stamens 10, 9 fused forming a tube, the 10th free; carpel 1, style 1.
Fruits: A legume pod, 20-30 mm long, with several seeds, not ridged or angled.
Habitat: Dry grassland, sand-dunes, rocky ground.
Distribution: Abundant.
Native status: Native
Of conservation interest: No