Hop trefoil
Trifolium campestre
Family · Fabaceae · Harmless
The small clover with yellow heads that turn golden brown on drying without falling, coming to look like a miniature hop cone. It is the commonest of the Iberian yellow clovers.
Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Town and roadside · Dunes and sand
Also known asfield clover, low hop clover
How to tell it
Small yellow heads with twenty to thirty flowers, drying without falling and turning down like roof tiles. Three leaflets, the middle one on a longer stalk than the side pair, which is the detail that separates it from its cousins.
What it is confused with
White clover
Trifolium repens
Head colour: yellow here, white on the other. Both harmless.
What it is for
Fodder and green manure, and a good spring nectar plant. No relevant human food use.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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