Yellow Rattlebox - Rhinanthus minor
This plant has an erect stem that bears stalkless, yellow flowers in a leafy one-sided spike. The calyx is inflated when in fruit.
Yellow rattlebox is hemi-parasitic on pasture grasses, which means that its roots attack the roots of other plants and then suck the life out of them. If enough yellow rattlebox grow in a meadow, they can destroy the other grasses in it.
Spotted in a large meadow bordering the coast.
Yellow rattle or cockscomb, ''Rhinanthus minor'', is a flowering plant in the genus ''Rhinanthus'' in the family Orobanchaceae, native to Europe and Western Asia.
It is a hemi-parasitic herbaceous annual plant that gains some of its nutrients from the roots of neighbouring plants. It grows to 25–50 cm tall, with opposite, simple leaves, with a serrated margin. The flowers are yellow, produced on a terminal raceme. The fruit is a dry capsule, which contain loose, rattling seeds when.. more
