Rough clover
Trifolium scabrum
Family · Fabaceae · Harmless
The small hard clover of the poorest, most trampled soils, with white heads that stiffen as they dry and sepals bent outward like minute spines.
Where it grows
Fields and pasture · Dunes and sand · Roadsides and waste ground · Walls and rocks
Also known asrough trefoil
In flower
How to tell it
A small, prostrate, very hairy plant. Leaves of three leaflets with strongly marked veins curving to the margin. Oval stalkless heads, white or cream, with five to twelve minute flowers. As it dries, the sepals harden and spread outward, and the head turns rough to touch.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
No use. It is a clear indicator of exhausted, heavily trampled soil: where it dominates, almost nothing else manages.