Lotus campylocladus (Tenerife bird's-foot trefoil)

CC image by Bjoertvedt

This species is endemic to the high altitude areas of Tenerife and La Palma.

It is a plant with a rather low-growing habit: this may take advantage of a microclimate close to the ground, where there is less air movement (and thus less likelihood of water loss) and where it may be slightly warmer. In the more sheltered pine forest it grows in cushions.*

It has blueish-green leaves which are divided into three leaflets at the tip, with another pair at the base: this species is in the Leguminosae family. It uses symbiotic bacteria to fix nitrogen from the air and does not need to rely on nitrate levels in the harsh soils.

Daffodil-yellow flowers are borne in groups of three to five at the stem tip. Their colour and position may make them conspicuous to pollinating insects.

The leaves and stems are rather hairy: this may be an adaptation against insect herbivores, or a way of altering the moisture-retaining properties of the boundary layer around the plant.

*perhaps the one I've seen in the caldera is even a different species of Lotus.