PlantKey Open ecological atlas
Planner
Home / Browse / Coronilla / Mediterranean Crownvetch
iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Fabaceae family

Mediterranean Crownvetch Coronilla valentina

Also known as: Mediterranean Crown Vetch

Mediterranean Crownvetch is an introduced perennial shrub, found in the lower 48 states. It grows to 2.4 ft.

More about this plant

Coronilla valentina, the shrubby scorpion-vetch,smokebush, scorpion vetch or bastard senna, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Coronilla of the legume family Fabaceae, native to the Mediterranean Basin, and introduced into Kenya and the United States. It is an evergreen shrub growing to 80 cm (31 in) tall and wide, with pea-like foliage and fragrant, brilliant yellow flowers in spring and summer, followed by slender pods. Linnaeus observed that the flowers, remarkably fragrant in the daytime, are almost scentless at night. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 11 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Height
2.4 ft
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Broadleaf
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
Nitrogen fixer — Fixes atmospheric nitrogen through root-nodule bacteria — builds soil fertility for itself and its neighbours, cutting fertiliser need.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts Documented caterpillar host
Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
✦ Bees 2 bee visitors

2 native & managed bee species are documented visiting Mediterranean Crownvetch :

Anthophora plumipes · digger bee Bombus terrestris · Buff-Tailed Bumblebee
Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI →
Wildlife & visitors 1 nectaring

Open records of who else uses Mediterranean Crownvetch — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

1 adult butterfly & moth species is recorded nectaring at its flowers:

Mellicta deione
Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (1) Methods & honest limits
Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (19) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)
[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[08] Ecological value — GloBI
[11] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[12] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[13] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[14] Nitrogen fixation — Werner et al. 2014 (Dryad, CC0)
[16] Other common names — Wikidata (CC0)
[18] Flower-visitor value (derived) — Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI
[19] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX 
Loading…