Lotononis
Lotononis bainesii
Fabaceae
Grazing by animals. Siage. Cover crop. Nitrogen fixing.
Lotononis is typically a warm season, perennial, creeping and mat-forming legume used for grazing, however it can also appear in situations where it might be viewed as a weed, albeit a weed with both positive and negative attributes. Plant stems can reach up to 1.5 m long, and are sparsely hairy. Leaves are trifoliate (3 leaflets), with leaflets narrow-elliptic to obovate, 6–40 mm long and 2–10 mm wide. Flowers are pea shaped and yellow. According to a NSW DPI publication, Lotononis is suited to light-textured acid soils, rainfall above 1000 mm per year and has some tolerance to flooding and waterlogging. It however grows best on well-drained but moist soils.
Pod damage from heliothis and pod-sucking insects can be a problem. Plants can also be impacted by rhizoctonia fungi, little leaf virus, and bean yellow mosaic virus. There is not much written about beneficial associations, although one study did show that honey bees visited flowers and were important for pollination.