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Hare's-Foot Clover

Hare's-Foot Clover

Trifolium arvense

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How common: Common

Alien species

Hare's-Foot Clover is a small annual clover with soft, woolly flower heads that look like a hare's paw. It thrives in dry, sunny, open places and on disturbed ground. The flowers are white to pinkish but mostly hidden by long silky hairs.

Did you know?

  • The silky flower heads look and feel like a hare’s paw, giving the plant its name.
  • The petals are so small that the head looks more like a little brush rather than a typical clover bloom.

About the species

Identification

An annual clover 10–30 cm tall. Stems upright, slender, much-branched, grey-hairy. Leaves are in threes; each part narrow, 0.6–2 cm long. Flower heads are long and cylindrical, pale grey from long silky hairs; the tiny white to pink petals are mostly hidden. As seeds form, the furry heads turn brown and keep the small pods inside. Easy to tell from red and white clovers by the soft hare's-foot heads, not the round, showy heads of those species. Flowers in Finland in June–July.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

meadow, yards and roadsides

Flowering

Jun–Jul

About the habitat

Dry, sunny, open ground: sandy or rocky soil, poor grassland, and disturbed places such as ports, railways, roadsides, and field margins. Common in Åland and the southwestern mainland; scarce elsewhere in southern Finland, farther north only a casual visitor.

Sources

Photo: Michael Becker, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trifolium arvense 2005.07.11 09.23.43.jpg

Text: Pinkka: Laaja maatalouslajintuntemus 4 op - Koppisiemeniset, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39050

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4n%C3%B6napila

See also