White Clover, Trifolium repens
Family: Fabaceae; Bean Family
Vegetative Characteristics:
Seedling: cotyledons spatulate; first true leaves simple, broadly oblong to ovate
Stems: erect or ascending, 3.0-40.0 cm tall, glabrous; stolons prostrate, creeping, often forming mats, rooting at most nodes
Leaves: palmately trifoliate or rarely quadrifoliate (four-leaf lover), from stolons, 0.5-4.0 cm long; leaflets obovate to obcordate with small-toothed margins, white-membranous, lanceolate; stipules tubular; petiole 5.0-20.0 cm long, glabrous
Reproductive Characteristics:
Inflorescences: nearly globose, 40-85-flowered, 1.0-3.0 cm diameter; corolla white turning pink and then brown, 7.0-12.0 mm long; calyx tube cylindrical, 2.0-3.0 mm long, lobes lanceolate, 5-10 nerves each sinus between lobes, ending in a purple spot or dark purplish area; peduncle 3.0-30.0 cm long, erect
Fruits: legume, 3.0-5.0 mm long, oblong, sessile
Seeds: globose to reniform, 1.5 mm long, yellowish, 3 or 4 seeds per pod
Special Identifying Characteristics:
⇒ erect or ascending stoloniferous perennial; leaves and flowering stems arising from stolons; flowering head full, white, globose, with up to 85 flowers; sinuses between each calyx lobe purplish or purple-spotted
