Family: legumes (Fabaceae)
Flowering time: May–September
Size: 15–50 cm
Habitat: meadows
The upright or creeping stem of red clover (Trifolium pratense) is bare to densely pubescent. Its basal leaves form a leaf rosette, the trifoliate stem leaves consist of lobes, ovate to oval leaflets. For this herbaceous perennial, the characteristic sessile pinkish-red flowers have a 15 to 18 mm long corolla and a reddish hairy calyx with 10 veins. The flowers are at the tops of the shoots grouped into one or two dense, globose to ovate inflorescences. The uppermost stem leaves clasp the sessile inflorescence, which measures 2 to 3 cm in diameter.
Red clover grows on fresh, moderately nitrogen-rich soils; however, it is found in sunny locations throughout Slovenia. As a cultivated plant it is grown for animal fodder and for soil improvement ('green manuring'), since the symbiotic bacteria that inhabit the root nodules of red clover convert otherwise inert nitrogen from the atmosphere into nitrogen compounds usable for plant growth and development.
