Bird's-foot

Ornithopus perpusillus (little white bird's-foot, common bird's-foot) is a small, slender, prostrate to weakly ascending annual herb of the legume family (Fabaceae), with finely hairy stems 2–30 cm long branching from a thin taproot. The alternate, shortly stalked leaves are pinnately compound and 1–5 cm long, bearing 7–15 pairs of tiny oblong-elliptical leaflets 2–5 mm long and a single terminal leaflet, the foliage softly hairy and bright fresh green. From May to August it produces axillary, long-stalked clusters of 3–6 (sometimes solitary) very small pea-like flowers each about 3–5 mm long, with creamy-white standard petals delicately veined and tinged with pink or pale crimson and pinkish-purple keels, the cluster subtended by a small pinnate leafy bract. The fruit is a distinctive narrow, jointed, curved, somewhat constricted lomentaceous pod 10–20 mm long that resembles a small bird's foot, breaking at maturity into one-seeded segments. Native to western and central Europe and locally extending into North Africa, it grows on dry sandy and gravelly acid soils on heaths, sandy commons, open pine and birch woodland, dune slacks, and rocky banks.