Florapass
English
Alsike Clover

Alsike Clover

Trifolium hybridum

Identify the Alsike Clover from a photo and log your finds with Florapass.

Coming soon to the App Store and Google Play.

How common: Common

Alien species

Alsike Clover is a medium-tall clover from Europe, often sown in fields and grasslands and now common along roadsides and meadows. It has round heads of white to pinkish flowers that later turn brown. The leaves come in threes and lack the pale V-mark many other clovers show.

Did you know?

  • The name comes from Alsike parish in Sweden.
  • Widely used as a fodder and green manure plant, and its flowers are excellent for bees.

About the species

Identification

Perennial, 20–50 cm tall, with many upright, hollow stems that do not creep or root. Leaves are in threes; each leaflet is 1–2 cm, oval with a blunt tip and fine teeth, smooth and not shiny, and without a pale V-mark. Flower heads are round on long stalks at stem tips; flowers are white to pinkish, later brown, and the petals often remain after bloom. Seeds develop hidden inside the dried flower head. Differs from White Clover, which is low and creeping with rooting runners and pale V-marked leaves, and from Red Clover with larger, deeper pink heads and marked leaves. Flowers in Finland in July–August.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

yards and roadsides

Flowering

Jul–Aug

About the habitat

Grows in open, often human-made places such as meadows, pastures, field margins, roadsides and waste ground; also occurs where it has been sown. Common throughout the country, rare in Lapland.

Sources

Photo: Ivar Leidus, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trifolium hybridum - roosa (rootsi) ristik.jpg

Text: Pinkka: Verso- ja leviäintunnistus - Kaikki leviäimet, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39039

Text: Pinkka: Verso- ja leviäintunnistus - Kaikki versot, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39039

Text: Pinkka: Laaja maatalouslajintuntemus 4 op - Koppisiemeniset, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39039

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alsikeapila

See also