Small scorpion vetch
Coronilla minima
Family · Fabaceae · Irritating
The low legume with yellow flowers arranged in a perfect crown atop a stalk, filling limestone banks in spring. The name comes from exactly what you see.
Scrubland · Uplands · Roadsides and waste ground
Also known asleast scorpion vetch
How to tell it
Yellow pea flowers in a ring, all facing outwards from one point, like a crown. Leaves with few pairs of small, fleshy, bluish leaflets. A pod constricted between the seeds that breaks into segments.
What it is confused with
Kidney vetch
Anthyllis vulneraria
Both with yellow heads in limestone pasture. Kidney vetch has an inflated hairy calyx on each flower and a collar of cut bracts; scorpion vetch has clean flowers in a ring, with no collar.
What it is for
None
The genus carries cardiac glycosides and is toxic to livestock in quantity, despite looking like a harmless forage plant.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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