SPECIES DESCRIPTION
TRIFOLIUM TOMENTOSUM
Family and Genus:- See- LEGUMINOSAE/Subgen. LOTOIDES/Sect.
Common Names:- Woolly trefoil
Homotypic Synonyms:- Amoria tomentosa,,Galearia tomentosa, Trifolium
resupinatum subsp. tomentosum, Xerosphaera tomentosa.
Meaning:- Trifolium (L) With three leaflets.
Tomentosum (L) Thickly matted with hairs.
General description:- Very variable, low to short, prostrate or sprawling, generally
hairless annual.
Stems:-
1) 5-15 cm. usually branched from base with procumbent to ascending
Leaves:-
1) Leaflets, 7-20 mm, sessile, obovate-cuneate, sharply serrulate at least in upper
half.
2) Stipules, ± scarious, free part triangular, greenish.
Flowers:-
1) Flowering heads, small (6-8 mm in diam.), hemispherical, stellate.
2) Peduncles, usually short.
3) Bracts, minute, united at the base.
4) Calyx 5-10 mm in fruit, pyriform. sparsely pubescent to tomentose, crowned by
the two divergent upper calyx-teeth.
5) Corolla, 2-8 mm, somewhat exceeding the calyx, pink or rarely reddish-purple.
6) Fruiting heads, globose, 12-15 mm in diam., with much inflated, reticulate-veined
villous calyx tubes; teeth not protruding.
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.
3) Heads, lateral.
4) Fruiting heads, ± pedunculate.
5) Calyx, upper teeth evident, divergent.
Habitat:- Coastal flats, seasonally damp spots in dry open shrubby vegetation and
open woodland, fallow fields, olive groves, generally 0-700 m. (-1500 m. in dolines).
Distribution:- Throughout Greece, but rare in the north interior. - Mediterranean
region and SW Asia eastwards to Afghanistan. Widespread on Crete.
Flowering time:- Late Mar to June.
Photos by:- Steve Lenton
