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Bogbean

Bogbean

Menyanthes trifoliata

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How common: Very common

Bogbean is a wetland plant with large three-part leaves that look like big clover leaves. It grows in bogs, fens, and the edges of ponds and lakes across the cooler parts of the Northern Hemisphere. In early summer it lifts showy clusters of white, star-like flowers above the water.

Did you know?

  • The flowers are lined with soft white fringes that look like frost and help guard the nectar.
  • Bogbean makes two forms of flowers that encourage cross‑pollination, often by bumblebees.

About the species

Identification

Perennial wetland plant, 20–40 cm tall. It has a thick, finger-wide creeping stem under peat or floating in water. Leaves rise on long stalks and are divided into three oval parts, like clover but larger. The tall stalk carries many starry flowers about 1.5 cm wide: white inside with dense soft fringes, pinkish outside, and the tips bend back; pollen parts look purplish. After flowering it forms a dry case with many small brown seeds. Unlike true clovers, it grows in waterlogged sites and has showy white flowers, not pea-like heads. Flowers in Finland in June–July.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

mire

Flowering

Jun–Jul

About the habitat

Thrives in very wet, peaty places: open bogs, swampy hollows, shallow pools, marshy lake and pond margins, and slow ditches. Often grows where water stands and can spread over floating mats of peat moss. Common throughout Finland; most plentiful on wet open mires in the north.

Sources

Photo: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:(MHNT) Menyanthes trifoliata - Jardin Botanique Henri GAUSSEN.jpg

Text: Pinkka: Kaisaniemen kasvitieteellisen puutarhan evoluutiopuutarha - Asteridit, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39328

Text: Pinkka: BIO-503 Suomen kasvisto ja kasvillisuus - Sisävedet: humusjärvet, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39328

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

See also