LEGUMINOSAE (PULSE FAMILY) 237 
BIRD’S-FOOT TREFOIL 
Lotus corniculatus, L. 
Other English names: Bloom-fell, Ground Honeysuckle, Cat’s 
Clover, Crow-toes, Sheep-foot. 
Introduced. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 
Time of bloom: June to September. 
Seed-time: July to October. 
Range: Waste places and on ballast in New Brunswick and Nova 
Scotia, about the seaports of Eastern and Middle States. 
Habitat: Waste places; in a few instances invading fields. 
An emigrant from Europe, where it is a widely distributed and 
It has a long, deep-boring 
very troublesome weed, native to Asia. 
root which renders it very resistant 
to drought, and a spreading habit of 
growth which enables it to crowd out 
all better plants growing with it. It 
is not considered poisonous, and has 
even been cultivated as a forage 
plant in some localities in the South, 
but grazing animals suffer from bloat 
and indigestion when they eat very 
much of it. (Fig. 169.) 
Stems many from the same root, 
slender, hairy, some erect and others 
prostrate, four inches to two feet long. 
Leaves sessile or nearly so, pinnately 
compound, consisting of five small, 
oblong leaflets, the basal pair appear- 
ing like large stipules, the other three 
Fie. 169. — Bird’s-foot Trefoil 
(Lotus corniculatus). xX 4. 
like a trefoil at the end of the stalk, or rachis. Flowers numerous, 
in showy, umbellate heads lifted on slender peduncles three to six 
inches long; corolla about a half-inch long, bright yellow, or the 
standard a coppery red. Pods linear, nearly an inch long, each 
containing several shining, light brown seeds. 
Means of control 
Prevent seed development and starve the roots by close and 
repeated cuttings from the time of flowering until- the end of the 
