Trifolium tomentosum L.
woolly clover
Annual; stems glabrous, procumbent, not rooting at nodes. Lvs glabrous or sparsely hairy about petiolules; petioles c. 10-30 mm long; leaflets obovate, acute, mucronate, cuneate at base, finely serrate, c. 5-10 mm long; lateral veins thin and ± straight to leaflet margin; petiolules up to 1 mm long, ± equal; stipules ovate, acuminate. Infls axillary, ± umbellate, globose, pedunculate or subsessile, < lvs; fls numerous, subsessile; bracts reduced, connate at base of fls. Calyx lanate on upper side and also lanate when inflated, with c. 20 rather indistinct veins, greatly inflated on upper side at fruiting; throat open, ± glabrous or sparsely hairy; calyx teeth ± equal at flowering, < corolla, < or ± = tube, inconspicuous on the inflated calyx, erect at fruiting; lower 3 teeth triangular; upper 2 teeth narrowly triangular; sinuses acute or obtuse. Corolla pink, persistent but enclosed by inflated calyx at fruiting, 3-4 mm long. Pod glabrous, straight, < calyx, 2-3 mm long, 1-2-seeded; seeds c. 1.5 mm diam.
N.: rare in N. and S. Auckland, common about Wellington City; S.: common in Marlborough and Canterbury, also collected from Cromwell and near Alexandra (Otago).
Mediterranean to W. Asia 1948
Dry waste places, pastures, lawns, riverbeds.
FL Oct-Feb.
Woolly clover has been established in N.Z. at least since early this century but had been previously recorded as T. resupinatum under a broader concept of that sp. It is most easily distinguished from T. resupinatum by the lanate fruiting calyx which lacks conspicuous calyx teeth (Plate 13). N.Z. material can be referred to the type var.
