Flowers and leaves. Photo: Don Wood, ACT

Flowers and leaves. Photo: Don Wood, ACT

Flowers and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Adelaide, SA

Common Name

Australian Trefoil, Austral Trefoil

Family

Fabaceae

Notes

Perennial forb to 60cm tall. Leaves alternating up the stems, compound, with 5 leaflets, the leaflets at the base stem clasping, each 1-4cm long, 2-10mm wide, flat to linear, hairy to hairless. Flowers white, pink, or sometimes purple, pea shaped, with 5 petals, 2 almost joined together. Flowers in almost spherical umbels of 3-8 flowers, the stalks arising from the bases of the leaves. Poorly known Vic.

Differs from Lotus cruentus in that the umbels are 3-8 flowered and the flowers are 10-20mm long.

Description and photo in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 400

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Lotus~australis