This section is from the book "Our Early Wild Flowers", by Harriet Louise Keeler. See also: Newcomb's Wildflower Guide.
Perennial. Becoming common. Fields and roadsides.
Erect or ascending, not rooting at the nodes.
Long-petioled, compound, of three leaflets; leaflets short-stalked, obovate, narrowed at the base, slightly serrate.
In heads, pink and white, reflexed with age.
Persistent, five-cleft.
Papilionaceous, tubular, the petals having grown together.
Ten; nine with filaments united, one more or less separate.
One, producing a two to four-seeded pod. Pollinated by bees. Nectar-bearing.
The Alsike Clover is comparatively a recent arrival; its origin is shown by its name; it is a hybrid; Alsike is the name of a parish in Sweden, and the clover is often called Swedish Clover. Its stem system is a delicate form of that of the Red Clover; its flower-heads resemble those of the White Clover. The plant was introduced as a field crop and in moist, cool soils is valuable as such, but evidently the newcomer has found
America congenial and it has moved to the by-ways and the highways, adorns the curb in our northern cities, clings to the borders of fields, and is altogether lovely and delightful.
The leaves are the typical Clover leaf with long stalks, and the leaflets are obovate and unmarked. The heads are loose little balls, the florets rose-colored or rose and white, sweet-scented and rich in honey. The florets wither, become brown, and turn downward after fertilization in the same way as those of the White Clover.
A little later come the Hop-Clovers - low, strag -gling creatures with small heads of yellow florets; also the Rabbit's-Foot with soft and silky grayish heads, and the Buffalo Clover, red and white.
Alsike Clover. Trifolium hybridum
 
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