Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Hosackia pinnata

bog bird's-foot lotus, bog bird's-foot trefoil, bog deervetch, meadow bird's-foot-trefoil, meadow deervetch, meadow or bog bird's-foot trefoil, pinnate lotus
Habit Herbs usually robust, 15–50 cm, glabrous; rhizomatous, rhizomes spongy-thickened, whitish, rooting at nodes.
Stems

1–5, usually ascending, sometimes decumbent, unbranched or branched, ± fleshy or not.
Leaves

stipules ovate, 2–5 mm, scarious; petiolate;

rachis straight, 2–7 cm;

leaflets 5–9(–11), petiolulate, blades usually elliptic to obovate, rarely oblanceolate, (7–)10–25 mm, apex emarginate or rounded to obtuse or acute, surfaces glabrous.
Peduncles

ascending, (1–)5–10 cm, longer than subtending leaf, elongating in fruit, glabrous;

bract subtending umbel or absent, 1(–3)-foliolate.
Umbels

4–10-flowered.
Flowers

10–15 mm;

calyx reddish, 5.5–7.5 mm, glabrous, tube obconic-cylindric, 4–5 mm, lobes abaxial 3 subulate to lanceolate, adaxial 2 triangular, 1–2 mm, usually eciliate, sometimes sparsely ciliate;

corolla banner and keel yellow, wings white or cream, wings longer than keel, claw longer than calyx tube, banner reflexed to 180°, keel apex subacute.
Legumes

± ascending to ± inclined, ± reddish to dark brown, linear-oblong, turgid, 30–50(–85) × 1.5–2.5 mm, thinly leathery, incompletely septate, glabrous.
Seeds

8–20, olive to reddish or dark brown, oblong, 1.5 mm.
2n

= 14.

Hosackia pinnata
Phenology Flowering spring–early summer.
Habitat Wet to moist, open areas, springy meadows, bogs, wetlands, springs, streambeds, stream banks, seepages, in water, ditches.
Elevation 30–2500 m. (100–8200 ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
CA; ID; OR; WA; BC
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Hosackia pinnata reaches its northern limit near Nanaimo, southeastern Vancouver Island, British Columbia (M. Donovan 2006). It ranges southward along the inner foothills of the coastal ranges (avoiding areas of high precipitation) and in the Cascade Range, to the Coast Ranges of California (to Santa Barbara County) and along the Sierra Nevada. Hosackia pinnata is sometimes disjunct inland to eastern Washington and northwestern Idaho and, rarely, in central Oregon.

Hosackia bicolor Douglas ex Bentham and Lotus bicolor Frye & Rigg are both superfluous, illegitimate names that pertain to H. pinnata.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Hosackia
Sibling taxa
H. alamosana, H. crassifolia, H. gracilis, H. incana, H. oblongifolia, H. rosea, H. stipularis, H. yollabolliensis
Synonyms Lotus pinnatus
Name authority (Hooker) Abrams in L. Abrams and R. S. Ferris: Ill. Fl. Pacific States 2: 541. (1944)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Fabaceae, Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America, OregonFlora, UW Burke Herbarium

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers