Botanical name: Lotus corniculatus
Folk names: Eggs and bacon, love entangled

Type: Perennial

Wildlife: Caterpillar food plant for common blue and wood white butterflies, and moths including six-spot burnet, mother shipton, burnet companion and chalk carpet. Protein-rich pollen for bumblebees, and nectar for butterflies and the six-spot burnet moth. Favoured by the solitary wool carder bee (see One Garden Against the World by Kate Bradbury).

Flowers: June to August

Decorative merit: Bright yellow, pea-like flowers, often tinted with orange and brown. Three-lobed leaves. Gently sprawling, forming mats (good for filling gaps) for 30cm or so, becoming more upright near the tip.

Where: Sun or shade. Middle of borders, mini meadows, longer lawn areas (tolerates mowing), containers, and dry gravel gardens where it will be a good companion for lamb’s ear (and a help to the wool carder bee). Good for coastal gardens. Happy in well-drained soil (add grit or sand if you like). Long tap-root allows it to draw on deep water supplies. Make the most of its drought tolerance. Stems will sprawl when you leave them over winter, so keep in mind if planting near a path or border edge.

Folklore: One of the plants woven into protective wreaths on midsummer’s night. Victorian nature writer Richard Jefferies described it as ‘a picture of summer’.

Pea family relative of red and white clover.

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