White Clover

White Clover

Trifolium repens

This might be the most common and recognizable plant in lawns.

NASA did a study in 2005 and found that lawns "could be considered the single largest irrigated crop in America in terms of surface area, covering about 128,000 square kilometers in all."

Given that there are about 10,000 White Clover plants per square kilometer, that means that there are about one and a quarter billion White Clovers in America.  I think we can take them off the endangered species list.



A three-leaf clover. Rarely there are four, and those are good luck.

This is what my lawn looks like :-)

Up close, they're an attractive flower

Suckling Clover

Suckling Clover

Trifolium dubium

Suckling Clover is one of the Hop Clovers that are hard to distinguish.  Just keep in mind that this species has flowerheads with few flowers and a stalk on it's terminal leaflet.

This plant is not native the North America.  It is the smallest of the Hop Clovers and is somewhat nondescript.  It can be quite common in grassy areas but little noticed.

Note the stalk on the terminal leaflet

The flowerhead has fewer flowers than the other hop clovers

Field Clover

Field Clover

Trifolium campestre

There are a lot of clover species and they're hard to identify to the species, kind of like gulls and sparrows. To some people, the challenge makes them interesting, but I just find it frustrating. I'm not sure that the people that write the books all have it straight, because there are oftentimes discrepancies.

Anyhooo ... all whining aside, here's what I know. There are three species of Trifolium that look quite similar - the Hop Clovers.  Add to that Medicago lupulina - Black Medick. Medicago lupulina is best identified by it's seed head which looks quite different than the Trifoliums, but otherwise the plant is similar.

This plant has more flowers in it's flowerhead than Trifolium dubium. The terminal leaflet of it's compound leaf has a stalk, whereas Trifolium aureum does not.

That's all there is to it, as long as you find typical plants that follow those rules.



Note the stalk on the center leaflet

One plant separated from the bunch

A bunch of plants. This is how they usually grow.