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HOP TREFOIL
Trifolium procumbens
Family LEGUMINOSAE
An annual. To be found in dry pastures, meadows and by the roadsides. Abundant in Britain generally but rare in northern Scotland.
From the rootstock rise the much-branched stems. They are downy, one growing nearly erect, from six inches to a foot long, others all round it are creeping. The trefoil leaflets are oval, the small and near the base, the central one some little distance from the others.
The flowers are pale yellow, thirty to fifty of them, gathered together in a loosely globular head, and are supported on rather long stalks, springing from the axils of the leaves. In fading, the flowers become reflexed and the broad upper petal arching over the straight pod, tuming bright brown, giving the head the appearance of a hop strobile. In this species the small one-seeded pods are always so covered.
The flowering period is from June to August.
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Individually the flowers are inconspicuous. The calyx is irregular, and divided into four to seven narrow segments; there is a Hop trefoil similar number of unequal greenish-yellow petals, each deeply cleft into two lobes, and a multitude of stamens. The stigmas are lobes at the mouth of the open ovary. The Hop trefoil flowers are honeyed, though scentless. The oblong seed capsule is green and opens at the top long before maturity, each containing several seeds.
The Hop trefoil calyx forms a broad tube with five lobes; petals five and stamens maony. The numerous carpels are grouped upon a conical receptacle, each containing two ovules, of which only one trefoil Hop develops into a seed. The fruit is a black or purple drupe, but very minute and stalkless, a large number being clustered together on the receptacle to form the so Hop trefoil-called Blackberry. Flowering from June to September. To be found on banks, dry pastures and in open woods, the Barren Strawberry is one of the earliest of the flowering plants trefoil Hop to make its presence known.
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