Small scorpion-vetch

Coronilla vaginalis, the small scorpion-vetch or sheathed crown-vetch, is a low-growing perennial subshrub in the legume family (Fabaceae), native to the calcareous mountains of central and southern Europe from the Pyrenees and Alps eastwards to the Carpathians and the Balkans. Plants form low compact cushions or mats 5-25 cm high, arising from a woody rootstock; the slender stems are glabrous, slightly woody at the base, and somewhat glaucous. The leaves are alternate and imparipinnate, 2-5 cm long, with 3-6 pairs of small obovate to elliptic leaflets 4-10 mm long that are glaucous on both sides and have minutely toothed translucent margins; the broad scarious stipules are partly fused around the stem, giving the species its epithet vaginalis ("sheathed"). Inflorescences are long-stalked umbels of 4-10 bright golden-yellow pea-flowers, each 8-12 mm long, with the standard finely veined and the keel slightly beaked. The fruit is a long, slender, glabrous loment 1.5-3 cm long, transversely constricted between the seeds and breaking into one-seeded segments at maturity. The species grows on stony alpine and subalpine limestone slopes, pastures, and rocky pine forest floors.