Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Fabales > Fabaceae > Lotus > Lotus corniculatus

Lotus corniculatus (birdfoot deervetch; cat's clover; garden birdsfoot trefoil; garden bird's-foot-trefoil; bloomfell; Birdsfoot Trefoil; ground honeysuckle; crowtoes; Common Bird's-foot-trefoil; Birds-foot Trefoil)

Synonyms: Lotus corniculatus minor; Lotus corniculatus var. crassifolia; Lotus corniculatus var. ericetorum
Language: Armenian; Azerbaijani; Belorussian; Estonian; Finnish; French; Georgian; German; Italian; Latvian; Lithuanian; Mongolian; Polish; Portuguese; Romanian; Russian; Spanish; Swedish

Wikipedia Abstract

Lotus corniculatus is a common flowering plant in the pea family Fabaceae, native to grassland in temperate Eurasia and North Africa. Common names include common bird's-foot trefoil and just bird's-foot trefoil, though the common name is often also applied to other members of the genus. It is also known in cultivation in North America as bird's-foot deervetch.
View Wikipedia Record: Lotus corniculatus

Infraspecies

Lotus corniculatus afghanicus
Lotus corniculatus corniculatus (Attributes)
Lotus corniculatus delortii
Lotus corniculatus fruticosus
Lotus corniculatus preslii (Attributes)
Lotus corniculatus tenuifolius
Lotus corniculatus var. arenosus
Lotus corniculatus var. borealis
Lotus corniculatus var. carnosus
Lotus corniculatus var. corniculatus (bird's-foot trefoil)
Lotus corniculatus var. major
Lotus corniculatus var. maritimus
Lotus corniculatus var. tenuifolius

Invasive Species

View ISSG Record: Lotus corniculatus

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Medium-Low
Screening - Summer [3]  Moderate
Screening - Winter [3]  Porous
Bee Flower Color [2]  Green
Flower Color [3]  Yellow
Foliage Color [3]  Green
Fruit Color [3]  Brown
Bloom Period [3]  Early Spring
Dispersal Mode [7]  Autochory, Zoochory
Drought Tolerance [3]  Medium
Edible [4]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Fire Tolerance [3]  Low
Flower Type [4]  Hermaphrodite
Frost Free Days [3]  90 days
Fruit/Seed Abundance [3]  Medium
Fruit/Seed Begin [3]  Spring
Fruit/Seed End [3]  Summer
Growth Form [3]  Single Crown
Growth Period [3]  Spring, Summer
Growth Rate [3]  Moderate
Hazards [4]  All parts of the plant are poisonous, containing cyanogenic glycosides(hydrogen cyanide); In small quantities, hydrogen cyanide has been shown to stimulate respiration and improve digestion, it is also claimed to be of benefit in the treatment of cancer. In excess, however, it can cause respiratory failure and even death. This species is polymorphic for cyanogenic glycosides; The flowers of some forms of the plant contain traces of prussic acid and so the plants can become mildly toxic when flowering; They are completely innocuous when dried;
Leaf Type [5]  Deciduous
Lifespan [4]  Perennial
Pollinators [4]  Bees
Propagation [3]  Seed
Regrowth Rate [3]  Rapid
Root Depth [3]  14 inches (36 cm)
Scent [4]  The flowers are powerfully scented, even though they are able to pollinate themselves.
Seed Spread Rate [3]  Slow
Seed Vigor [3]  Low
Seeds Per [3]  369839 / lb (815357 / kg)
Shape/Orientation [3]  Semi-Erect
Structure [5]  Herb
Usage [4]  An orange-yellow dye is obtained from the flowers; A useful green manure plant, fixing atmospheric nitrogen; It is difficult to see this plant as a useful green manure, it is fairly slow growing with us and does not produce much bulk;
Vegetative Spread Rate [3]  None
Flower Conspicuous [3]  Yes
Height [4]  12 inches (0.3 m)
Width [4]  20 inches (0.5 m)
Hardiness Zone Minimum [3]  USDA Zone: 2 Low Temperature: -50 F° (-45.6 C°) → -40 F° (-40 C°)
Light Preference [6]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [6]  Moderate Acid
Soil Fertility [6]  Infertile
Soil Moisture [6]  Mostly Dry
Water Use [3]  Moderate
View Plants For A Future Record : Lotus corniculatus

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Predators

Providers

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Erysiphe trifolii[11]
Peronospora trifoliorum[11]
Uromyces pisi-sativi[11]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2Arnold SEJ, Faruq S, Savolainen V, McOwan PW, Chittka L, 2010 FReD: The Floral Reflectance Database — A Web Portal for Analyses of Flower Colour. PLoS ONE 5(12): e14287.
♦ 3USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 4Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 5Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 6ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 7Paula S, Arianoutsou M, Kazanis D, Tavsanoglu Ç, Lloret F, Buhk C, Ojeda F, Luna B, Moreno JM, Rodrigo A, Espelta JM, Palacio S, Fernández-Santos B, Fernandes PM, and Pausas JG. 2009. Fire-related traits for plant species of the Mediterranean Basin. Ecology 90: 1420.
Paula S. & Pausas J.G. 2013. BROT: a plant trait database for Mediterranean Basin species. Version 2013.06.
♦ 8New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Plant-SyNZ™ database
♦ 9Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 10SNOW VOLE - Chionomys nivalis (Martins 1842), Janeau G., Aulagnier S., IBEX J.M.E. 4:1997
♦ 11Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 12Dama dama, George A. Feldhamer, Kelly C. Farris-Renner, and Celeste M. Barker, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 317, pp. 1-8 (1988)
♦ 13Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0