Lotus angustissimusL.

slender bird's-foot trefoil

WFO wfo-0001060764 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Lotus angustissimus, photographed by Alessia Guggisberg
fig. a Alessia Guggisberg, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-27 / obs. 201073240
Lotus angustissimus, photographed by Alessia Guggisberg
fig. b Alessia Guggisberg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 189493893
Lotus angustissimus, photographed by Thomas Mesaglio
fig. c Thomas Mesaglio, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 97066424
Lotus angustissimus, photographed by Thomas Mesaglio
fig. d Thomas Mesaglio, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 94430063
Lotus angustissimus, photographed by LJ Moore-McClelland
fig. e LJ Moore-McClelland, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 92377745
Lotus angustissimus, photographed by Karen and Mike
fig. f Karen and Mike, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 43574383
Lotus angustissimus, photographed by Karen and Mike
fig. g Karen and Mike, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 42875822
Lotus angustissimus, photographed by Karen and Mike
fig. h Karen and Mike, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 42187121

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 41 botanical countries

Regions where Lotus angustissimus is native: Algeria, Azores, Canary Is., Egypt, Madeira, Morocco, Tunisia, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Iran, Kazakhstan, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Albania, Austria, Baleares, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corse, East European Russia, France, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kriti, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, South European Russia, Spain, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AlgeriaEgyptMoroccoTunisiaCyprusEast Aegean Is.IranKazakhstanLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineTranscaucasusTürkiyeWest SiberiaXinjiangAlbaniaAustriaBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseEast European RussiaFranceGreeceHungaryItalyKritiKrymNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalRomaniaSiciliaSouth European RussiaSpainTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine AzoresCanary Is.MadeiraBalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Lotus angustissimus, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Baleares BAL
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Corse COR
East European Russia RUE
France FRA
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iran IRN
Kazakhstan KAZ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
West Siberia WSB
Xinjiang CHX
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Azores AZO
Canary Is. CNY
Egypt EGY
Madeira MDR
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 43 in flower of 44 examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Lotus angustissimus observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 43 of 44 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 9 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 33 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Lotus angustifolius Gouan
  • Lotus angustissimus f. glaber D.Jord.
  • Lotus angustissimus var. erectus Gren. & Godr.
  • Lotus angustissimus var. glaber (D.Jord.) Kožuharov
  • Lotus angustissimus var. linnaeanus Bab.
  • Lotus angustissimus var. macrorrhyzus Samp.
  • Lotus angustissimus var. maritimus Rouy
  • Lotus angustissimus var. medius Rouy
  • Lotus angustissimus var. praetermissus (Kuprian.) Wissjul.
  • Lotus angustissimus var. seringianus Bab.
  • Lotus angustissimus var. uniflorus Matvejeva
  • Lotus armeniacus Kit Tan & Sorger
  • Lotus canescens Sieber ex Trev.
  • Lotus ciliatus Ten.
  • Lotus corbierei Rouy
  • Lotus corbieri Rouy
  • Lotus corniculatus var. ciliatus (Ten.) Willk.
  • Lotus corniculatus var. sibthorpii (Rouy) Asch. & Graebn.
  • Lotus decumbens var. sibthorpii Rouy
  • Lotus diffusus Sol. ex Sm.
  • Lotus diffusus Sm.
  • Lotus glaberrimus Schur
  • Lotus gracilis Waldst. & Kit.
  • Lotus hispidus subsp. angustissimus (L.) Batt.

and 9 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol LOAN2. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.