Clover field near Yarlington

Image: © Maigheach-gheal Taken: 1 Aug 2010

One of the most valuable crops or feeding cattle and sheep, clover has leaves divided into three and is usually grown with grass. Occasionally one is found with four leaves and the rarity of such a discovery has led to the belief that this brings luck to the finder. Clover grown as a crop is usually raised from specially bred strains of the wild species. There are two common white flowered clovers, white or ditch clover which has creeping stems, and the more upright alsike, with flowers which are at first white and erect but later turn rose red and curve down so that the flowers appear red with a white centre. Alsike was introduced from Europe for fodder but is now firmly established on roadsides. The two most common purple flowered clovers are red and zigzag. They are not easily told apart, but the latter has zigzag stems, narrower leaflets and flatter, redder heads of flowers. Red clover flowers make splendid wine and were once used, when dried, as a cough cure. A pretty clover is haresfoot, which is found on sandy soils and takes its name from the fluffy heads of flowers which look like the feet of a hare. Red and white clover are important to bee-keepers. The nectar attracts the bees, which are essential for pollination, their weight operating a mechanism which brushes pollen on their undersides. Many flowers are robbed of their nectar by insects which bore a hole from the outside and take the nectar without touching the pollen sacs.

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