Stem yellowish, tinged with red, unbranched, swollen at the base, glandular hairy. Scale leaves oval to lanceolate. Flowers pale yellow, 10 to 16 mm long, relatively small, curved, slightly hairy or glandular hairy, the lower lip with even lobes and without a hairy margin. Stigma yellow, rarely purple.  It is parasitic on a wide range of herbaceous plants; it has been recorded in VC55 on White Clover and Black Medick.

Records from this species should be confirmed by a County Recorder for botany.  It is on the VC55 Rare Plant Register, and therefore a specimen should not be taken.  Take detailed field photos and submit to NatureSpot as soon as possible; and if you think you have found it in a new location, inform the County Recorder as soon you can. (RPR)

Flowers June to September.

Widespread but infrequent in southern Britain, scarce elsewhere.

Rare in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the Flora of Leicestershire (Primavesi & Evans 1988) it was found in 1 of the 617 tetrads, and in 2 tetrads in the Flora of Rutland (Messenger 1971).

It is on the current VC55 Rare Plant Register (Hall and Woodward, 2022) as Locally Rare (sporadic appearance, and likely to be under-recorded).