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Hosackia rosea
A native North American perennial legume of mountains, canyons and moist thickets, grown for its small white or pink pea-like flowers. It is a wildflower rather than a common garden plant, so it suits native or naturalistic plantings.
Hosackia rosea, synonym Lotus aboriginus, is a species of legume native to North America. It is known by the common names rosy bird's-foot trefoil and thicket trefoil. It grows in mountains and canyons, often in moist areas. It is a perennial herb lined with leaves each made up of pairs of oval leaflike leaflets 1 to 3 cm long. The inflorescence is a spray of six to 10 white or pink flowers each about 1 cm long. The flower is somewhat tubular, encased at the base in a calyx of sepals and lobed at the mouth. The fruit is a hairless elongated legume pod 3–5 cm long.
It is believed that Hosackia rosea could be a potential host plant for the caterpillars of the critically endangered lotis blue butterfly (syn. Lycaeides idas lotis, Lycaeides argyrognomon lotis, Plebejus anna lotis).
Big Deervetch · Seaside Bird's Foot Trefoil · Hosackia hintoniorum · Woolly Bird's Foot Trefoil · Streambank Bird's Foot Trefoil · Meadow Bird's Foot Trefoil · Hosackia repens · Balsam Bird's Foot Trefoil · Yolla Bolly Bird's Foot Trefoil · Bird's Foot Trefoil
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Hosackia rosea by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
