bird's-foot

British  

noun

1. a European leguminous plant, Ornithopus perpusillus , with small red-veined white flowers and curved pods resembling a bird's claws

2. any of various other plants whose flowers, leaves, or pods resemble a bird's foot or claw

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Example Sentences

Heading back toward Broadway, we came upon a giant mural on the side of an apartment building featuring male and female hooded warblers perched on a bird’s-foot violet plant.

From Washington Post • Jul. 7, 2022

By varying the steepness of the table, they created miniature mountain streams disgorging into fan-shaped flood plains and bird's-foot deltas.

From Science Magazine • May 13, 2021

Many curious names have resulted from the prefix pig, as in Sussex, where the bird's-foot trefoil is known as pig's-pettitoes; and in Devonshire the fruit of the dog-rose is pig's-noses.

From The Folk-lore of Plants by Dyer, T. F. Thiselton (Thomas Firminger Thiselton)

Violet, Dame's, 141. dog's tooth, 98. early bulbous, 106. pedate-leaved, or bird's-foot, 303.

From Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, Rockeries, and Shrubberies. by Wood, John

All the way there and back the sward was short and soft, almost like that of the Downs which they could see, and dotted with bird’s-foot lotus, over whose yellow flowers they raced.

From Bevis The Story of a Boy by Jefferies, Richard