/ 3 Oj [ 1769 ]
TRIFOLIUM repens.
White Trefoil, or Dutch Clover.
DIADELPHIA Decandria.
G e n . C h a r . Flowers more or less capitate. Pod
scarcely longer than the calyx, never bursting,
■ but falling off entire.
S p e c . C h a r . Heads umbellate. Pods with four seeds.
Stem creeping.
B S y n . Trifolium repens. Linn. Sp. PI. 1080. Sm. FI.
Brit. 782. Duds. 324. With. 646. Hull. 163.
Relh. 286. Sibth. 228. Abbot. 161. Curt. Lond.
fa sc . 3. t. 46. Mart. Rust. t. 34.
T. pratense album. Raii Syn. 327.
V ERY common in meadows and pastures, flowering from
May to September, and varying excessively with regard to
luxuriance, as well as in the white or dark purplish marks
upon its leaves.
Root fibrous, perennial. Stems prostrate, creeping very
extensively, branched near their origin, round, smooth, leafy.
Leaves alternate, on long upright stalks. Leaflets on small
partial stalks, inversely heart-shaped, or roundish, finely
toothed, smooth. Flower-stalks longer than the leaves, angular,
each bearing a dense round-headed umbel, of many
cream-coloured flowers, rarely reddish, pendulous in decay.
Calyx smooth, with 10 ribs. Pod oblong, smooth, containing
3 or 4 seeds, and invested with the brown permanent
corolla.
In rich moist soil, in osier-holts, &c., it sometimes acquires
a more upright and luxuriant stem, but still remains
distinct from the Linnaean T. hylridum, with which some
have confounded it.
This plant is valuable for supplying cattle with fodder in the
dry autumnal months, and forms, as Professor Martyn observes,
an excellent bottom in pastures.