SPECIES DESCRIPTION
TRIFOLIUM RESUPINATUM

Family and Genus:- See- LEGUMINOSAE/Subgen. LOTOIDES/Sect.
VESICASTRUM

Common Names:- Reversed clover

Homotypic Synonyms:- Amoria resupinata, Galearia resupinata,
Xerosphaera resupinata.

Meaning:- Trifolium (L) With three leaflets.
                  Resupinatum (L) Inverted, reversed.
                            
General description:- Very variable, low to short, prostrate or sprawling, generally
hairless annual.

Stems:-
1) 10-30(-60) cm, procumbent, ascending or erect.

Leaves:-
1) Leaflets, 7-20 mm, obovate-cuneate,
2) Stipules, ± membranous, ovate, acuminate.

Flowers:-
1) Flower heads, 10-12 mm in diam. at anthesis, broadly campanulate to
    subglobose
2) Flowers, resupinate, scented or scentless.
3) Peduncles, filiform, somewhat exceeding the subtending leaf.
4) Bracts, minute, united at the base.
5) Calyx, 2-lipped, 5-10 mm in fruit, pyriform, sparsely pubescent to tomentose
    strongly inflated, reticulate-veined, crowned by the 2 setaceous upper teeth:
    a) tube, pubescent on the adaxial side.
    b) teeth, the 3 lower, shorter than the tube, lanceolate, upper 2 equalling tube,
        narrower.
6) Corolla, 6-10 mm, mauve or purplish pink.
7) Fruiting heads, ± pedunculate. globose, 15-20 mm in diam.

Fruit:-
1) Legume, included in the calyx or exserted. (1-)2-4(-10). seeded

Key features:-
1) Fruiting calyx, pyriform, pubescent, tomentose or lanate (sometimes finally
    glabrescent), adaxially gibbous.
2) Bracts, inconspicuous and ± concealed.
4) Fruiting heads, ± pedunculate.
5) Calyx, upper teeth evident, divergent.
6) Flowers, reversed.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Salines, freshwater swamps, and seasonally wet grassland. 0-900 m. (-
1400 in dolines).

Distribution:- Throughout Greece, common in the west. - probably native in the
Mediterranean area and SW Asia. Fairly widespread but not too common on Crete.

Flowering time:- Late Mar to early July.   

Photos by:- Steve Lenton