Kidney Vetch - Anthyllis vulneraria - Western Isles Blue Wildflowers

Flowers
The flower head is crowded with many small flowers each with a woolly calyx. The flowers can vary from very pale yellow through to orange. You will often see that some of the clustered Flowerheads are burnt out and almost dead - whilst those next to it may be new ones with the vibrant yellow, orange colours.

A short to medium height plant this perennial vetch is characterised by its silky pinnate leaves and flower head crowded with many small flowers each with a woolly calyx. Kidney vetch flowers can vary from very pale yellow through to orange and occasionally crimson but our plants are a typical mid yellow

Kidney Vetch
These yellow wildflowers show their heads May through to September. Rounded heads of yellow-orange flowers, although occasionally the pink, white and red species also are to be seen.

Frequently seen Near The Coast
They are frequently seen near to the coast, on the dunes or on the sandy itself. Kidney vetch likes the same type of soil as the machair's here on the islands so you can often see it in the grassy machair as well.

It is a plant that easily spreads. The kidney vetch grows up to 6-0cm in height.

Nectar For Insects
The Flowerheads provide food for butterfly larvae. These wildflowers give nectar and pollen for bees and beetles. It is the sole food plant for the caterpillars of the small blue butterfly, which is why this plant is really important. Kidney vetch is the foodplant of the small blue butterfly larvae.

Seeds
The seeds of the lovely yellow wildflower are very tiny and the seedpod just carries the one seed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaves - Stem
The kidney vetch has a fragile stem and long narrow leaves. The leaves are alternate, stalked–stalkless, stipulate. Basal leaves are a glaucous greyish-green are irregularly lobed, sometimes very deeply so, on a stalk as long as the leaf.

Latin Name
The latter part of its name Vulneraria means "wound healer"

Common Names
It has been christened with many common names such as Ladies' Fingers, Lamb's Toes, Kidney Vetch, Staunchwort, Butter Fingers, Fingers and Thumbs, Double Pincushion, Lamb’s Foot.