Bird's-foot Trefoil
Lotus corniculatus
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Eggs and bacon — yellow flowers streaked red, and seed pods splayed like a bird's foot.
A low, sprawling perennial of short grassland with small trefoil leaves and clusters of yellow pea flowers, often streaked and flushed with orange-red in bud — the eggs-and-bacon of its country name. The seed pods radiate from a point like the toes of a bird's foot. It is common on verges, dunes, unimproved grassland and thin soils around Dumfries.
Behaviour
This is one of the most important wildlife plants in British grassland: it is the foodplant of the common blue butterfly and of the six-spot burnet moth, and a major nectar source for bumblebees. Like other legumes it fixes nitrogen through root nodules. The foliage contains small amounts of cyanide compounds, which deter some grazers.
When to see it
Quick facts
- Family
- Peas (Fabaceae)
- Height
- 10–40 cm, sprawling
- Status
- Native; common, and a key butterfly foodplant
Photo by Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons