Lotus corniculatus

Plants are 5 to 30 cm tall, ascending to erect, hairless to densely hairy, with 2 to 8 flowers per head and flowers 7 to 16 mm long.

The petals are yellow, often with a red-flushed standard; the keel curves upward and the leaves have five leaflets arranged three plus two.

Info Flora gives May to July as the flowering period in Switzerland.

A University of Bayreuth field botany sheet gives May to September as the flowering period in Germany.

Pladias gives June to August as the flowering period in Czechia and records insect pollination.

It grows in meadows, pastures, dry grassland, margins, along paths and on banks, on dry to fresh, nutrient-rich and mostly calcareous soils.

The Lotus corniculatus species group occurs from the lowlands up to 2300 m and is Eurasian to submediterranean in distribution.

The Czech Pladias database records bumblebees and solitary bees as its main pollinator groups, with honeybees among the groups below a 10 percent share.

In a UK study of sown urban meadows, bird's-foot-trefoil contributed under 1 percent of total nectar and pollen in the perennial mix.

According to the British recording society BWARS, the long-horned bee Eucera longicornis visits bird's-foot-trefoil in western Europe along with vetches, clovers and other legumes.

Info Flora classes bird's-foot-trefoil as indigenous in Switzerland, with a Eurosiberian distribution and least concern Red List status.

German direct-payment rules list Lotus corniculatus among the pollen- and nectar-rich species allowed on fallow land used for honey plants.