British wildflowers - Hop Trefoil

British wildflowers

028 II Hop Trefoil Trifolium Procumbens L

British wildflowers of the Fields and Medows

The present range of Hop Trefoil - for this is only known in the present-day flora - is the North Temperate Zone of Europe, North Africa, North and West Asia, and it is also an introduction in North America. In Great Britain it is unknown in Monmouth, South-east York, Main Argyle, Hebrides, Orkneys, elsewhere it grows from Ross southwards, ascending to 1200 ft. in Derbyshire, Ireland, and the Channel Islands.

The Hop Trefoil, while commonly a meadow plant, is also a frequent associate of species that delight in the more or less undisturbed security and protection of the railway banks, which are now so general a feature of most districts.

Likewise it frequents natural banks and slopes, being accustomed to dry conditions, and is largely a dry-soil lover.

Photo. Flatters & Garnett - Hop Trefoil (Trifolium procumbens, L.)

The specific name suggests the trailing habit of most of the stems, the principal one being erect, slender, the leaflets blunt at the tip, the leaves with lobes each side of a stalk, the leaflets in threes, and the stems are also slightly downy.

The flowerheads are round, large, in oval spikes, with overlapping florets, having a hop-like appearance (hence the name). When the flowers are withered the standard yellow, like the rest of the flowers, is arching but does not fold over the pods. It is bent down, does not fall, and is furrowed. The flowers are stalked, the style is less than the pod, the leaf-like organs on the leaf-stalks are 1/2 - ovate, acute, and the seeds are oval.

The stems of the Hop Trefoil are rarely 18 in. long, and usually 1 ft, and on the coast about 6 in. high, with larger flowers. The flowers are in bloom in June and July. The plant is annual.

The flowers are large and conspicuous, and are visited by bees, Apis mellifica, Halictus flavipes. The tube is not so long as in Red Clover, the flowers numerous and dense. The standard is broad, and arches over the centre, and the style is hooked. The short calyx allows the other parts of the flower to return to position after an insect visit.

The pod is a 1-seeded fruit, not splitting into many parts, egg-shaped, and when ripe it falls off or is broken off. It is therefore dispersed by its own agency.

Hop Trefoil is addicted to a sand soil. Like Hare's Foot Trefoil, it also grows on the more ancient rock formations on stony barren ground.

The Hop Trefoil is a food plant for a beetle, Apion pisi, and a moth, Anthocera trifolii.

The second Latin name refers to its procumbent or trailing habit It is called Hop or Yellow Clover, and Hop Trefoil. From the hop-like shape of the flowers it is called Hop Trefoil. Not so valuable as Red or White Clover, it is an annual. It often covers barren ground where nothing else will grow.

Essential Specific Characters:

82. Hop Trefoil - Trifolium procumbens, L. - Stem erect, branches procumbent, leaflets obovate, central petiole longest, stipules ovate, flowers yellow, in dense, round, hop-like heads, forty flowers, standard dilated not folded.

British wildflowers

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