#birds-foot trefoil

[party-at-jacurutu]

2024

[hepdenerose]

Summer Oddities (Blackshaw Head to Stubbing Wharf)

Mondays are typically challenging for me but as Phil was unusually work-free, I agreed to a walk on a windy mid-July day. After a breezy uphill bus ride, Blackshaw Head felt positively blustery. In the graveyard, thoughtful mowing had left wildflower patches for hawkbit, clover and hardy dandelions to flourish. The latter’s off-white seeds billowed into the air. The chapel’s angular lines…

[garfield118]

060624

[writinginnorthnorfolk]

[when i think of you]

after e.e. cummings i see your bike left haphazard on the edge of the forbidden cricket pitch fringed with golden hued birds-foot trefoil and clover, sky overhead cross-hatched with vapour trails, like the lines that sketch your face now; your face then was freckled, your breath sweet with bubble gum, lips stained orange with the juice of a Jubbly (do you remember, it was the cheapest ice…

[flowerishness]

Lotus corniculatus (bird's-foot trefoil)

If I was more interested in social media approval I would never make an invasive weed like bird's-foot trefoil the star of the show. Generally, I get the most likes/hearts/ticks for pretty garden flowers, followed by interesting native plants. Unfortunately 'weeds' usually come in a distant third. Bird's-foot trefoil is a wildflower, originally from the grasslands of Eurasia and North Africa, but is now a common invasive plant throughout the lawns and roadsides of the temperate world.

'Weeds' often bring advantages to the struggle for existence and bird's-foot trefoil is no exception. As a legume it can fix it's own nitrogen and it does well in poor soil. Farmers like it as a non-bloating forage crop for livestock and it's often used to stabilize sloping land for erosion control. It's even included in some wildflower mixes because bumble bees love it's abundant nectar.

However, these advantages belong to a plant that easily enters native environments and regularly outcompetes local species. Like it or not, it is now a permanent member of plant communities around the world. Although this 'weed' may be driving many native species to the edge of extinction, I have a feeling that the bird's-foot trefoil's long-term survival is guaranteed. Thanks largely to our help.

[michaelnordeman]

A Bumblebee/humla on a Bird's-foot trefoil/käringtand. Värmland, Sweden (July 1, 2020).

[lost-harts]

August 2023

[butterflyangel2002]

These cute yellow flowers I keep seeing everywhere in town 💛🌼

[indigrassy]

Little bee on some bird's-foot trefoil

[blogbirdfeather]

Southern Bird's Foot Trefoil - Cornichão-das-praias (Lotus creticus)

Loulé/Portugal (20/02/2024)

[Nikon D500; AF 105mm Micro-Nikkor F2,8 with Circular Flash Nissin MF 18; 1/250s; F22; 400 ISO]

[midnite-enjoyer]

bird's foot trefoil

[crudlynaturephotos]

[roseunspindle]

San Diego bird's-foot trefoil

[anskupics]

Lotus corniculatus  — common bird’s-foot trefoil a.k.a. eggs and bacon a.k.a. birdsfoot deervetch

[dansnaturepictures]

21/06/2024-Oxeye daisies, creeping cinquefoil, grass vetchling, views, pyramidal orchid, bindweed, bee orchid and Large Skipper at Lakeside Country Park and home today.

Young Starlings and Long-tailed Tits at home and Lakeside in a great time I'm having for seeing young birds lately, Great Crested Grebe still on a nest, Black-headed Gull, Herring Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, House Sparrow, loads of Marbled Whites in Lakeside's meadows, Meadow Brown, Ringlet, Red Admiral, dock, yellow rattle, meadow crane's-bill, green alkanet, bird's-foot trefoil, knapweed, vetch and white clover were other highlights today with Ring-necked Parakeet heard at Lakeside.

[uncleasad]

That post I reblogged from @evilpenguinrika earlier about what nature is like in urban settings made me think about this plant (in this case, it’s a mixed-use/suburban setting, but still).

This is a bird’s-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), a tiny flowering plant in the pea family. I noticed it one day last month flowering in the grass in the right-of-way in front of our office buildings and thought it looked very pretty, with a neat shape, and presumed it was a small native wildflower (what people often call “weeds”)—although it turns out this is actually native to Eurasia and Africa and can be invasive in some parts of North America.

I didn’t have a shovel with me that day, so I stuck a number of sticks around it, in the vain hopes that I’d get back to it before the county mowed the right-of-way, which seemed like it’d be soon. I didn’t (it turned out to be the next morning), but I’m forever grateful to whomever was mowing that day, because they mowed around that area, and I was able to transplant the flower successfully to another spot nearby. (It’s not actually “in the garden” like other things in this tag, but so many of those plants have come from the buildings, so….)