Relatives

Trifolium aureum Poll. - Large Hop Trefoil, Golden Clover.

Taxonomic position.

Family Fabaceae Lindl., genus Trifolium L.

Synonyms:

Chrysaspis aurea (Poll.) Greene, Trifolium agrarium L., Trifolium strepens Crantz.

Morphology and biology.

Annual or biennial herbaceous plant. Stems 20-40 cm tall, ascending, usually intensely branching, covered with adpressed hairs. Leaflets 20 mm long, 3-10 mm wide, oblong-obovate or oblong-elliptic, obtuse or emarginate at apex, finely dentate in upper half. Flowers 5-6 mm long, golden yellow, by the end of blossom light brown, aggregated in numerous globose or oval heads on short axillary peduncles. Calyx 2.5-3.5 mm long, scarious, 5-veined, bilabiate. Pods obovoid, 1-seeded. Autogamous. Flowers in June, fruits in July. 2n=14.

Ecology.

Fringes of birch grooves, kolki (insular grooves among steppe), upland and forest meadows, abandoned fields, among crops.

Distribution.

Europe, Caucasus, Siberia, Far East (adventive).

Economic value.

May be used as forage plant.

References:

Brezhnev DD., Korovina ON. 1981. Wild relatives of cultivated plants of the flora of the USSR. Leningrad: Kolos. 376 p. (In Russian).
Grossheim AA. 1952. Flora of Caucasus. 2nd ed. V.5. P.194-221. (In Russian).
Minjaev NA., ed. 1981. Manual of Higher Plants of the Northwestern European Part of RSFSR. Leningrad. 376 p.
Bobrov EG. 1987. Clover - Trifolium L. In: Fedorov AA., Tzvelev NN., eds. Flora of the European part of the USSR. V.6. P.195-208. (In Russian).
Bobrov EG. 1945. Clover - Trifolium L. In: Shishkin BK., ed. Flora URSS. V.11. P.189-261. (In Russian).
Pavlov NV., ed. 1961. Flora of Kazakhstan. V.2. Alma-Ata. 515 p. (In Russian).
Polozhij AV., Malyshev LI., ed. 1994. Flora of Siberia. Fabaceae (Leguminosae). V. 9. (In Russian).
Hulten E., Fries M. 1986. Atlas of North European vascular plants north of the Tropic of Cancer. V.1-3. Konigstein: Koeltz Scientific Books.

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