Red clover Trifolium pratense

Features

Perennial, up to 50 cm tall.

Species	Perrenial
Living space	Meadow
Size	up to 50 cm

Description

The upright or boiling stem of the red clover is bare to densely fitted hairy. Its ground leaves form a leaf rosette, and the triple stem leaves consist of blunt, ovate to oval, leaflets. This herbaceous perennial is characterized by sessile pinkish-red flowers with a 15 to 18 mm long corolla and a sparsely hairy calyx with 10 veins. The flowers are grouped at the top of the shoots into one or two dense, globose to ovate, inflorescences. The highest stem leaves embrace the sessile inflorescence, which measures 2 to 3 cm in diameter. It grows on fresh, moderately nitrogen-rich soils; it can be found in bright places all over Slovenia. As a cultivated plant, it is planted to feed livestock and to improve the soil (‘green manure’), as symbiotic bacteria that settle in the root follicles of red clover convert otherwise unreactive nitrogen from the atmosphere into nitrogen compounds useful for plant growth and development. It is common in meadows.