100 Species #53: Hop clover

[urbpan]

This ground cover of hop clover (Trifolium campestre or similar species) is growing along the wall of the house in the side yard, inside the gravelly line where rain from the roof falls.

We are quite used to seeing clover with white or reddish flowers, but there are also several yellow species. Hop clover is an alien weed, from Eurasia, but something of a welcome one. It forms a nice ground cover, doesn't cause any dermatitis (sorry, have poison ivy on the mind kind of always now), and is edible to livestock. Since it is a legume, it also fixes nitrogen in the soil, making a better growing environment for most other plants.

This species is new to this journal, but I have written about a lookalike relative called black medick.

Comments

[by-steph.livejournal.com]

Interesting. From just the first photo alone, I would have been like "Yup. That's wood sorrel. Hey kids, eat some!" Luckily, clover is fairly benign.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_wood_sorrel

[ideath.livejournal.com]

Interesting that the medick, not the hop clover, has lupulina in the name. What distinguishes the two? They look very similar in the photos.

[weofodthignen]

Hmm, here's a stupid question that I don't see the answer to in the Wikipedia entries. The black medick is called black because it produces black seedpods. So what's the stuff in our lawn that has prickly seedballs, burrs in fact? It could otherwise be either of the 2 plants, although I note that hop clover supposedly gets a foot high, and what we have spreads along he ground and keeps low except where it leans against the raised border of a flowerbed. But it looks like a clover with mini yellow flowers, only I don't recall clover forming burrs.

M,
who keeps having to rip out the pretty legume after it goes to seed before it makes the dog miserable.