Pink-purple ball-shaped flower head on hairy stems above trefoil leaves, each leaflet marked with a pale chevron; fixes nitrogen and is sown as fodder
Red clover, Trifolium pratense.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Red clover
Native · flowers May–Oct · meadows, pastures, verges and lawns
Trifolium pratense — Fabaceae
A robust clover of grassy places whose rounded, pinkish-purple flower heads are a favourite of bumblebees. Like all legumes it carries nitrogen-fixing bacteria in its roots, which is why it has long been sown as fodder and used in crop rotations to enrich the soil. Darwin used it to explain a chain of dependence running from cats to clover.
How to spot them
- ▸Rounded, pinkish-red to purple flower heads about 2–3 cm across, sitting directly on top of the leaves without a long bare stalk
- ▸Trefoil leaves: three oval leaflets, each with a pale V- or chevron-shaped mark
- ▸Larger and more upright than white clover; stems are softly hairy and it does not creep or root at the nodes
- ▸Pointed, bristle-tipped stipules at the base of each leaf stalk
- ▸Flowers May to October in meadows, pastures, roadsides and lawns
How to know it
Darwin argued that the number of these plants in a district depended on cats, because cats eat the mice that destroy the nests of the humble-bees that pollinate them
Red clover — the cats-mice-bumblebees-clover chain from On the Origin of Species.
Its species epithet, from the Latin for 'of the meadows', suggests where it grows, while the genus name means 'three-leaved'
Trifolium pratense: tri-folium (three leaves) and pratense (of meadows).
Long used in crop rotation because its root nodules hold bacteria that turn atmospheric nitrogen into a form plants can use
Red clover — a legume in the family Fabaceae.
Bumblebees, especially long-tongued ones, are the main visitors to its deep flowers, and wood mice collect the leaves
Red clover — the Wildlife Trusts note that mice collect the trefoil leaves.
A grassland legume with pink flower heads that, unlike its white-flowered cousin, stands upright and does not creep or root at the nodes
Red clover.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Fabaceae (peas and beans); Trifolium means 'three leaves' and pratense means 'of the meadows'
- •The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust gives a flowering season of May to October and a height up to 40 cm
- •Nitrogen fixation: bacteria (Rhizobium) living in root nodules turn atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium the plant can use, enriching the soil for later crops
- •Long sown as a fodder crop for livestock and used in crop-rotation systems because it fixes nitrogen
- •Bumblebees of many kinds, common carder bees, honeybees and red-tailed bumblebees all visit for nectar
- •Darwin's On the Origin of Species links clover, humble-bees, field mice and cats: fewer cats, more mice, fewer bumblebees, less red clover seed
- •Wood mice collect the trefoil leaves
- •Compare white clover: creeping stems, smaller white flower heads on long stalks; red clover is upright with pink heads directly above the leaves
Drill it — 7 cards
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Sources
- Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust — Red clover
- Charles Darwin — On the Origin of Species (chapter 3, Struggle for Existence)