Spiny Restharrow - Ononis spinosa

Short to tall subshrub with stiffly-spiny erect stems, not rooting below and with two lines of hairs. Leaves mostly trifoliate, linear to oval not notched. Flowers pink or reddish purple pea like, 15 to 20 mm in lax racemes. Fruit pod hairy, oval with central line, splitting.

Ononis repens

The stems are mainly hairy in one row, or two opposite rows. Leaflets  >3 times as long as wide, usually acute or subacute.  It can be spineless.

A photo of plant in its habitat, plus close-up photo showing details of hairs on stem (RPR)

Rough grassy habitats, commons, banks and roadside verges, sometimes near the coast.

April to September

Perennial

Fairly frequent in much of England, but scarcer in Scotland and Wales.

Once fairly frequent in Leicestershire and Rutland, but now local and declining due to habitat loss and degradation.

In the Flora of Leicestershire (Primavesi and Evans 1988) it was found in 95 of the 617 tetrads, and in the Flora of Rutland (Messenger 1971) in 6 tetrads.

It is listed on the current VC55 Rare Plant Register (Hall and Woodward 2022) because of its threat-level