Badassi
Dorycnium pentaphyllum
Family · Fabaceae · Harmless
The grey subshrub covered in clusters of small white flowers with a dark spot, filling limestone banks and inland road verges. On drying it fills with tiny black pods.
Scrubland · Roadsides and waste ground · Uplands · Fields and pasture
Also known asfive-leaved dorycnium, prostrate canary clover
How to tell it
Leaves divided into five narrow leaflets radiating from nearly the same point, covered in silky hairs that give the plant a silvery tone. Dense clusters of white flowers with a dark-marked keel.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
Fodder and a bank-restoration plant, widely used in roadside slope seeding. A good nectar 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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