SPECIES DESCRIPTION
TRIFOLIUM SYLVATICUM
Family and Genus:- See- LEGUMINOSAE/Subgen. TRIFOLIUM/Sect.
Common Names:- None
Homotypic Synonyms:- None
Meaning:- Trifolium (L) With three leaflets.
Sylvaticum (L) Wild, of woods or forests, sylvan.
General description:- Annual, softly grey-hairy.
Stems:-
1) 10-20 cm, sparingly branched from the base, softly patent-pilose throughout.
Leaves:-
1) Leaflets, sessile, obovate, obscurely denticulate at the apex.
2) Stipules, herbaceous, free part ovate, subobtuse.
Flowers:-
1) Flower heads, terminal, usually solitary, pedunculate, dense, narrowly ovoid at
anthesis, becoming shortly cylindrical.
2) Calyx tube, cylindrical, 10-ribbed.
a) teeth, subulate, ciliate, unequal, the lowest a little longer than the tube.
3) Fruiting calyx, urceolate, with a pale brownish pubescence.
4) Corolla, 7-8 mm, pale pink, equalling or exceeding the calyx.
Key features:-
1) Corolla, equalling or exceeding the calyx.
2) Stipules, ovate, at least at the apex, entire or obscurely dentate or angled.
3) Calyx-tube, ovoid or globose.
4) Calyx-teeth, unequal, the 4 upper ones shorter than the tube, all with long patent
hairs.
Habitat:- Damp meadows, deciduous oak scrub occasionally in dry open shrubby
vegetation and field margins, 0~800(-1300) m, mainly on noncalcareous substrates.
Distribution:- Scattered on mainland Greece, especially in the NE. - widedespread
in C & S Europe and SW Asia to N Iraq. Rare on Crete, currently known from only
one location in the Dikti massif.
Flowering time:- Late April to June
Photos by:- A. N. Other
