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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Fabaceae
Lotus angustissimus

Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 774 (1753).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Slender birds-foot trefoil, narrow-leaved trefoil.

Description:
Slender patent-hairy annual or rarely perennial; stems 10-30 mm long (in S.Aust.), usually erect rarely procumbent, pith solid or dispersed; leaflets lanceolate-ovate, apiculate, lower pair usually slightly smaller.

Flowers 6-8 mm long, 1-3 in an umbel on slender peduncles 1-5 cm long, 1-3 times as long as the subtending leaf; bracts 1-3, shorter or longer than the calyx, unequal; calyx campanulate, c. 5 mm long, gradually tapering into a c. 1 mm long pedicel, teeth lanceolate-subulate with patent hairs, usually longer than the tube; petals yellow, about one-third longer than the calyx; standard obovate-spathulate, about equal to the keel; wings obovate, shorter; keel narrow, bent from the middle at right angles along the lower edge, with a short beak.

Pod terete, slender, 10-30 x 1-1.5 mm, straight, brown, many-25seeded; seed subglobose, 0.8-0.9 mm, brown, smooth.

image of FSA2_Lotus_ang.jpg
Image source: fig. 343A in J.P. Jessop and H.R. Toelken Ed. 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Ross-Craig (1954) Drawings Brit. Pl. 7: pl. 46.

Distribution:  Damp sandy soils.

S.Aust.: EP, SL, KI, SE.   W.Aust.; N.S.W.; Vic.;.   native to the Mediterranean region, extending into the Euro-Siberian region; introduced to South Africa, North America and New Zealand.

Conservation status: naturalised

Flowering time: Nov. — Dec.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available


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