ROUGH CLOVER

(Trifolium scabrum)

(Photos: C. Schultz, Cape Jervis)

This weed is classed as an herb. No, not the sort used for flavouring, but in the botanical sense: it doesn’t have a woody stem, and when it has finished flowering, it dies down. The plant itself is fairly prostrate, with rigid branches up to 25cm long. Its leaves divide into 3 leaflets, each of which can be up to 11mm long, and 6mm wide. These leaflets can be oval or wedge-shaped, and finely toothed. They are also rough, being covered in hard but short rigid points. (Hence scabrum, for rough, as in scabs!) The pea flowers are white, and here is another great word for you: they are “sessile”. This means they are attached directly to the branch, with no stalk or peduncle.

Being an annual, the plant lives for less than a year, and reproduces from seed; each seedpod produces only one seed.

Originally from western Europe, the Mediterranean, western Asia, and north Africa, rough clover  can now be found in Mediterranean type grasslands in South Australia, often on stony ground and rock crevices.