Lotus corniculatusL.

bird's-foot trefoil

WFO wfo-0000212180 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Lotus corniculatus, photographed by Craig Martin
fig. a Craig Martin, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205593352
Lotus corniculatus, photographed by Michael Andresek
fig. b Michael Andresek, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205691836
Lotus corniculatus, photographed by Eric Bartkowski
fig. c Eric Bartkowski, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205792693
Lotus corniculatus, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. d Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205525764
Lotus corniculatus, photographed by Tina Ellegaard Poulsen
fig. e Tina Ellegaard Poulsen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205567142
Lotus corniculatus, photographed by corcan
fig. f corcan, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205841578
Lotus corniculatus, photographed by Mark Apgar
fig. g Mark Apgar, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205647127
Lotus corniculatus, photographed by Mathieu Roumet
fig. h Mathieu Roumet, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205607924

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.

Flowering n = 14,118 observations

Peak flowering in Jun, from 14,118 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 102 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 alpicola (Beck) Miniaev, Ulle & Kritzk.
  • Lotus ambiguus Besser ex Spreng.
  • Lotus angustifolius Gueldenst.
  • Lotus arvensis Pers.
  • Lotus balticus Miniaev
  • Lotus barcinonensis Sennen
  • Lotus bracteatus Wall.
  • Lotus callunetorum (Üksip) Miniaev
  • Lotus catalaunicus Sennen
  • Lotus catalaunicus var. grandifolius Sennen
  • Lotus caucasicus Kuprian.
  • Lotus caucasicus Kuprian.
  • Lotus ciliatus sensu Schur
  • Lotus colocensis Menyh.
  • Lotus corniculatus f. callunetorum Üksip
  • Lotus corniculatus f. carnosus Ostenf.
  • Lotus corniculatus f. crassifolius (Pers.) Wallr.
  • Lotus corniculatus f. crassifolius (Pers.) Wimm. & Grab.
  • Lotus corniculatus f. glaber Wallr.
  • Lotus corniculatus f. major Heldr.
  • Lotus corniculatus f. microphyllus Wimm. & Grab.
  • Lotus corniculatus f. minor Heldr.
  • Lotus corniculatus f. vulgaris Wimm. & Grab.
  • Lotus corniculatus subsp. ambiguus (Besser ex Spreng.) Tzvelev

and 78 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.

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