Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center


Home	About NPWRC	Our Science	Staff	Employment	Contacts	Common Questions	About the Site

Western Wetland Flora

Field Office Guide to Plant Species

Red Clover
Trifolium pratense L.

JPG -- Species Photo JPG -- Distribution Map

Family: Pea (Leguminosoe)
Flowering: May-October
Field Marks: This is the only perennial clover that has pink to reddish purple flowers that are at least 1/2 inch long and are sessile.
Habitat: In a wide variety of moist or dry habitats, including old fields, pastures, roadsides, and other disturbed, open areas.
Habit: Spreading to upright perennial herb with a taproot.
Stems: Spreading to upright, branched, up to 3 feet long, usually with a few to many soft hairs, sometimes hollow.
Leaves: Alternate, divided into 3 leaflets; each leaflet obovate to elliptic, up to 2 1/2 inches long, more or less hairy on both surfaces, often with an inverted V visible on the upper surface.
Flowers: Sessile, up to 80 in a head; each head spherical, up to 1 inch across, subtended by a trifoliate bract; heads sessile or on stalks up to 1 inch long.
Sepals: 5, green, united to form a tube, the tube up to 1/4 inch long, smooth or sparsely hairy, one of the 5 lobes longer than the other 4.
Petals: United to form a pea-shaped flower, pink to reddish purple, 1/2 to nearly 1 inch long.
Stamens: 10, with 1 of them separate from the other 9.
Pistils: Ovary superior.
Fruits: Pods ovoid, with 1-2 seeds; seeds asymmetrical, yellow-brown or yellow-green, up to 1/10 inch long.
Notes: This species was introduced from Europe and is a good pasture plant as well as a species that can bind the soil and add nitrogen to it.

Previous Species -- Large-head Clover (Trifolium macrocephalum)
Return to Species List -- Group 6
Next Species -- Cows Clover (Trifolium wormskioldii)

Accessibility FOIA Privacy Policies and Notices

U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/plants/florawe/species/6/trifprat.htm
Page Contact Information: Webmaster
Page Last Modified: Saturday, 02-Feb-2013 06:26:46 EST
Sioux Falls, SD [sdww55]