BIRD’S-FOOT TREFOIL
For as long as I can remember, a small yellow-flowered plant has bloomed reliably every year on the edges of highways near our summer cottage in Central New York State. I have discovered it closer to home as well, and I suspect that if I were to walk along country roads in rural New Jersey, I would find hundreds of the same little plants. My English grandparents called them “butter and eggs,” a traditional name, perhaps derived from the fact that the yellow flowers are tinged with orange–a bit like egg yolks–towards the center. “Butter and eggs” grows so low to the ground and is so ubiquitous that I never thought about it until last week, when my flower-loving daughter picked a few sprigs to include in a small bouquet. Putting the blossoms up to my nose, I noticed that they were also fragrant–exceptionally so, given their small size. I became curious about this plant that I had known all my life but never really noticed before.
“Butter and eggs” sprawls along the ground, putting out numerous gangly stems featuring clusters of small green leaves spaced at regular intervals. The one half to one-inch flower clusters are at the ends of the stems. Each flower has several parts, at least one of which is pointed. Left to their own devices, the plants produce mats of flowers and foliage that can spread a foot or more. When you drive along roads in areas where “butter and eggs” flourishes, the clumps often appear as a solid golden edging along the shoulders.
After a small amount of research, I discovered the plant’s Latin name: Lotus corniculatus. The species also claims numerous colorful common names in addition to “butter and eggs”. These include the most common–“bird’s-foot trefoil”–plus “birdfoot deervetch”, “bloomfell”, “cat’s clover”, “crowtoes”, “ground honeysuckle” and “eggs and bacon.” While the common names are evocative, the Latin name is downright confusing. Most people think of a lotus as a water lily-like plant with big showy flowers. Those water-dwelling lotus actually belongs to a completely different genus called Nelumbo. Lotus corniculatus, which never sees water other than rainfall, is a true lotus and a card-carrying member of the legume or pea family. “Corniculatus” is from the Latin and means having horns or a horn-like structure. This might refer to the pointed parts of the flowers. “Lotus” comes from the Latin and Greek words for “myrrh”, the aromatic resin that figures prominently in the Christian Christmas story. Perhaps this is an allusion to the fragrance, though I am not sure that all lotus species are fragrant. Even some bird’s foot trefoil flowers seem to lack fragrance, while others are very aromatic.
Like many “wildflowers”, bird’s foot trefoil is native to Europe, Eurasia and North Africa. It probably came to the American colonies with English settlers and rapidly escaped from captivity. It has succeeded so well here that it is considered an invasive plant in some states, though none of them are in the northeast.
Because it is a nutritious legume, the plant has also been used as animal forage, which may be part of the reason why it is so widespread in rural areas. Bees love the golden blooms and pollinate them. Many butterflies visit the flowers for nectar and some species use bird’s-foot trefoil as larval food as well.
Once I caught a whiff of the fragrance, I was so enchanted with bird’s-foot trefoil that I wanted to bring some home to my garden. Numerous clumps grow on our New York property, so finding one to bring home was easy. The digging took some doing, because Lotus corniculatus has a long tap root. The first clump had to be replanted because the flowers had no scent. I approached a second clump and stuck my nose in it before I dug it up, only to find that it lacked scent as well. The third clump, which was nearest the highway, was intensely fragrant. I chose that one and brought it home to my garden. I incorporated some gravel in the soil of the planting hole to give my bird’s-foot trefoil the good drainage to which it was accustomed. Right now it is going through transplant shock, but I hope it will recover in the days to come.
One of the greatest gifts a child can give an adult is the gift of seeing things fresh and new. My daughter is no longer a child, but from time to time she still surprises me with that gift. Now I have really seen bird’s-foot trefoil.