Common Cow-wheat - Melampyrum pratense

Leaves in pairs, linear to oval untoothed and generally unstalked. Flowers yellow to whitish, 10 to 18 mm long, the upper lip often tinged with red or purple in lax, one sided spikes, throat of the corolla usually closed. 

The leaves can look very similar to Greater Stitchwort, but are larger and firmer in texture

Woods, scrub, heaths and upland moorlands on well-drained, nutrient-poor acidic soils.

In flower June to October. 

An annual hemiparasite. The large seeds are distributed by ants.

Local and declining in Britain, probably due to habitat loss and the cessation of traditional woodland management.

Rare in Leicestershire and Rutland where it seems to be confined to the Charnwood area. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 7 of the 617 tetrads.

It is on the current Rare Plant Register (Jeeves, 2011)