TRIFOLIUM RESUPINATUM

Family and Genus:- See- LEGUMINOSAE/Subgen. LOTOIDES/Sect.

VESICASTRUM

Common Names:- Reversed clover

Homotypic Synonyms:- Amoria resupinata, Galearia resupinata,

Xerosphaera resupinata.

Meaning:- Trifolium (L) With three leaflets.

Resupinatum (L) Inverted, reversed.

General description:- Very variable, low to short, prostrate or sprawling, generally

hairless annual.

Stems:-

1) 10-30(-60) cm, procumbent, ascending or erect.

Leaves:-

1) Leaflets, 7-20 mm, obovate-cuneate,

2) Stipules, ± membranous, ovate, acuminate.

Flowers:-

1) Flower heads, 10-12 mm in diam. at anthesis, broadly campanulate to

subglobose

2) Flowers, resupinate, scented or scentless.

3) Peduncles, filiform, somewhat exceeding the subtending leaf.

4) Bracts, minute, united at the base.

5) Calyx, 2-lipped, 5-10 mm in fruit, pyriform, sparsely pubescent to tomentose

strongly inflated, reticulate-veined, crowned by the 2 setaceous upper teeth:

a) tube, pubescent on the adaxial side.

b) teeth, the 3 lower, shorter than the tube, lanceolate, upper 2 equalling tube,

narrower.

6) Corolla, 6-10 mm, mauve or purplish pink.

7) Fruiting heads, ± pedunculate. globose, 15-20 mm in diam.

Fruit:-

1) Legume, included in the calyx or exserted. (1-)2-4(-10). seeded

Key features:-

1) Fruiting calyx, pyriform, pubescent, tomentose or lanate (sometimes finally

glabrescent), adaxially gibbous.

2) Bracts, inconspicuous and ± concealed.

4) Fruiting heads, ± pedunculate.

5) Calyx, upper teeth evident, divergent.

6) Flowers, reversed.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Salines, freshwater swamps, and seasonally wet grassland. 0-900 m. (-

1400 in dolines).

Distribution:- Throughout Greece, common in the west. - probably native in the

Mediterranean area and SW Asia. Fairly widespread but not too common on Crete.

Flowering time:- Late Mar to early July.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton