Lotus rectus

Lotus rectus is a slender herbaceous perennial in the pea family (Fabaceae) native to the western Mediterranean, where it grows in damp meadows, marshy grassland, ditches and seasonally inundated places, particularly on calcareous to gypseous soils. It develops an erect to ascending, sparsely branched, hollow stem 30-100 cm tall arising from a short rhizome. The alternate leaves are imparipinnate with about three to five pairs of narrow, elliptic to oblong-lanceolate leaflets and small foliaceous stipules at the base, the foliage finely pubescent and glaucescent. In late spring and summer dense, capitate umbels of small pinkish-white to pale yellow pea-flowers are borne on long peduncles arising from the upper leaf axils; each flower has a tubular, bilabiate calyx and the typical papilionaceous corolla. The fruit is a small, straight, dehiscent legume containing a few smooth seeds. The species has at times been segregated into the monotypic genus Dorycnopsis.