Trifolium fucatum |
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bull clover, sour clover |
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Habit | Herbs annual, 10–80 cm, glabrous or glabrescent. |
Stems | erect or ascending, unbranched or densely dichotomously branched. |
Leaves | palmate; stipules ovate or lanceolate, 1–3 cm, margins entire or toothed, apex usually acuminate, sometimes 2-fid; petiole 3–15 cm; petiolules 1–1.5 mm; leaflets 3, blades broadly obovate, orbiculate, or rhombic-obovate, 0.8–4 × 0.7–3 cm, base broadly cuneate, veins obscure, thickened near leaflet margin, margins remotely dentate to densely serrulate-dentate, apex rounded or slightly retuse, surfaces glabrous or glabrate. |
Inflorescences | terminal or axillary, 10–30-flowered, subglobose or globose, 1–4 × 1–4 cm; involucres broadly bowl-shaped, 4–15 mm, lobes 3–8, lanceolate, acuminate, undivided or 2- or 3-fid. |
Peduncles | 3–13 cm. |
Pedicels | straight, 1 mm; bracteoles distinct or connate, broadly ovate, 1 mm. |
Flowers | 10–27 mm; calyx campanulate, 3–8 mm, glabrous, veins 10, tube 1.5–2.5 mm, lobes 5–10, unequal, undivided or 3-fid, long-acuminate, orifice open; corolla creamy white to yellow, pink to purple in age, keel petals rarely dark purple, 10–27 mm, banner broadly ovate, inflated in fruit, not distally twisted, 10–27 × 6–15 mm, apex rounded, erose. |
Legumes | stipitate, linear, 7–8 mm. |
Seeds | 3–8, gray, mottled, globose, 1.6–2 mm, reticulate. |
2n | = 16. |
Trifolium fucatum |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr–Jun. |
Habitat | Moist places, meadows, roadsides. |
Elevation | 0–1000 m. (0–3300 ft.) |
Distribution |
CA; OR; WA [Introduced in Asia (China, Japan)]
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Discussion | Trifolium fucatum is known as an invasive species in Japan (T. Mito and T. Uesugi 2004) and has also been introduced in China (specimen at BM). A single old collection exists from British Columbia, but the species has not been collected in that province again. The Michigan record of the species is an inadvertent waif. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Trifolium |
Sibling taxa | |
Synonyms | T. flavulum, T. fucatum var. flavulum, T. fucatum var. gambelii, T. fucatum var. virescens, T. gambelii, T. physopetalum, T. virescens |
Name authority | Lindley: Edwards’s Bot. Reg. 22: plate 1883. (1836) |
Web links |
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