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Ornithopus sativus

Common name:	Serradella	Family:	Leguminosae
Author:	Brot.	Botanical references:	50, 74
Synonyms:
Known Hazards:	None known
Range:	South-western Europe. Naturalized in south-west Britain.
Habitat:	Along the sides of roads and as a weed of cultivated ground[74]. Naturalized on china clay waste in south-eastern &ndndndnd.
Edibility Rating (1-5):	0	Medicinal Rating (1-5):	0

Other Common Names:	From various places around the Web, may not be correct. See below.
	Common Bird's-foot [B], Common Birdsfoot [P], Serradella [L],
Epithets:	From a Dictionary of Botanical Epithets
	sativus = cultivated
Systematics:	From a USDA Plants Database
	Order: Fabales. Renamed to Fabaceae -- Pea family

Physical Characteristics

Annual/Perennial growing to 0.7m. . The flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs). It can fix Nitrogen. We rate it 0/5 for edibility and 0/5 for medicinal use.

The plant prefers light (sandy), medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils and can grow in nutritionally poor soil. The plant prefers acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils. It can grow in semi-shade (light woodland) or no shade. It requires moist soil.

Edible Uses

None known

Medicinal Uses

Disclaimer

None known

Other Uses

Green manure Ground cover.

A good green manure crop, fixing atmospheric nitrogen and forming a good weed-excluding ground cover[46].

Cultivation details

This species is occasionally cultivated as a green manure crop[50].
This species has a symbiotic relationship with certain soil bacteria, these bacteria form nodules on the roots and fix atmospheric nitrogen. Some of this nitrogen is utilized by the growing plant but some can also be used by other plants growing nearby[200].

Propagation

Seed -

Suppliers

For more details of plant suppliers please see our Suppliers Page which lists many more places to look.

Web References

[B] Data (Latin & Common names, other references) from the BONAP's Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
[G] Data (Common Names, Uses, Distribution) from the USDA/ARS NPGS's GRIN taxonomic database.
[C] Taxon data. from the CalFlora database.
[P] Data. (uses, distribution, wetland) from the USDA'a Plants database.

See the PFAF Links Pages for other sources.

Also try Photos and info from the The Plants Database which has 14,000 images.

References

[46] Uphof. J. C. Th. Dictionary of Economic Plants. Weinheim 1959
An excellent and very comprehensive guide but it only gives very short descriptions of the uses without any details of how to utilize the plants. Not for the casual reader.

[50] ? Flora Europaea Cambridge University Press 1964
An immense work in 6 volumes (including the index). The standard reference flora for europe, it is very terse though and with very little extra information. Not for the casual reader.

[74] Komarov. V. L. Flora of the USSR. Israel Program for Scientific Translation 1968
An immense (25 or more large volumes) and not yet completed translation of the Russian flora. Full of information on plant uses and habitats but heavy going for casual readers.

[200] Huxley. A. The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. 1992. MacMillan Press 1992 ISBN 0-333-47494-5
Excellent and very comprehensive, though it contains a number of silly mistakes. Readable yet also very detailed.

Readers Comments

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Plant information taken from the Plants For A Future - Species Database. Copyright (c) 1997-2003.
WEB search engine by Rich Morris - Home Page- Contact Info
Blagdon Cross, Ashwater, Beaworthy, Devon, EX21 5DF, UK.
Website: www.pfaf.org Phone: 0845 458 4719/_44(0) 1208 872963

This page (UK) http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/cgi-bin/pfaf/arr_html?Ornithopus+sativus
This page (US) http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/cgi-bin/arr_html?Ornithopus+sativus

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We make no claims of magical effects or supernatural powers for any item in this catalog. In spite of legendary attributes or occult and craft tradition, such items are offered as curios only and beliefs concerning their magical effectiveness are related only for historical interest.