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

Somewhat earlier in the summer, bright yellow strips and patches, like squares of praying-carpet thrown down upon the sward, dotted the slopes: it was the bird’s-foot lotus growing so thickly as to overpower the grass.

From Wild Life in a Southern County by Jefferies, Richard

On a dry, gravelly, half-wooded hill-slope the bird's-foot violet grows in great abundance, and is sparse in neighboring districts.

From Wake-Robin by Burroughs, John

I suppose the plant you mean is trifolium corniculatum, or bird's-foot trefoil.-J.

From The Natural History of Wiltshire by Aubrey, John