SPECIES DESCRIPTION
TRIFOLIUM STELLATUM
Family and Genus:- See- LEGUMINOSAE/Subgen. TRIFOLIUM/Sect.
Common Names:- Star clover
Homotypic Synonyms:- None
Meaning:- Trifolium (L) With three leaflets.
Stellatum (L) With spreading rays, star-like.
General description:- Low to short, erect, hairy annual.
Stems:-
1) (2-)8-20 (-35) cm, erect, simple or branching from the base, patent-pilose.
Leaves:-
1) Leaflets, 8-12 mm, obcordate, denticulate, towards the apex, appressed-
pubescent.
2) Stipules, scarious with green veins, free part broad, herbaceous, dentate.
Flowers:-
1) Heads, 15-25 mm, globose or ovoid, terminal, long-pedunculate, broadly ovate at
anthesis.
2) Fruiting heads, globose, 20-35 mm, with stellately spreading calyx teeth dilated
at the base.
3) Peduncles, (5-)30-100 mm, with appressed or patent hairs.
4) Calyx tube, narrowly campanulate, 10-veined but veins obscured by long,
subappressed hairs;
a) teeth, twice as long as the tube, patent in fruit, 3-veined, triangular-lanceolate,
subulate-acuminate at the apex.
5) Corolla, 8-12 mm, ± equalling the calyx, white or pinkish.
Fruit:-
1) Legume nearly always included in the calyx-tube, 1- to 2-seeded.
Key features:-
1) Leaflets, of upper leaves obovate-cuneate or obcordate.
2) Heads, capitate, ± globose in fruit.
3) Stipules, denticulate.
Habitat:- Sandy coastal habitats, dry open shrubby vegetation, dry grassland,
fallow fields, roadsides and olive groves, generally 0-800 m. (occasionally to 1600
m.).
Distribution:- Common throughout Greece. - Mediterranean region and SW Asia.
Widespread and common on Crete.
Flowering time:- Mar-July.
Photos by:- Steve Lenton
