1. Applied to objects having the shape of a bird’s foot, as various plants. a. A small yellow vetch (Ornithopus); b. A small fern (Cheilanthes radiata); c. = Bird’s-foot Trefoil.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, 486. Birdes foote is lyke to … the wilde vetche, but far smaller.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xxv. 366. The wild species [Lotus corniculatus] is called common Bird’s foot.
1859. Miss Yonge, T. Thumb, xiv. 91. There the scented thyme … the glowing bird’s-foot, and the tufted milk-wort grow.
1865. Gosse, Land & Sea (1874). Among Ferns of humbler pretensions, the pretty little Bird-foot.
2. Bird’s-foot Trefoil or Lotus: a yellow leguminous plant (Lotus corniculatus), a native of Britain; also applied to other species. So Bird’s-foot Fenugreek, Bird’s-foot Violet.
1833. Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, I. 29. Lotus decumbens, Spreading Bird’s-foot Trefoil.
1861. Miss Pratt, Flower. Pl., II. 97. Trigonella ornithopodioides, Bird’s Foot Fenugreek … a very little plant … and bearing very small yellow flowers.
1882. Garden, 29 April, 286/2. The Bird’s-foot Violet [is] one of the sweetest flowers we have seen.
3. Bird’s-foot star, sea-star: an echinoderm related to the star-fish.
1855. Kingsley, Glaucus (1878), 167. The bird’s foot star (Palmipes membranaceus) … crawling by its thousand sucking-feet … a pentagonal webbed bird’s foot, of scarlet and orange shagreen.
1862. Ansted, Channel Isl., II. ix. (ed. 2), 237. The Cribella, the sun-stars … and the birds’ foot sea-star, are all represented.
