Flower:

A single round flower head on a 1 to 3 inch stalk arising from a leaf axil. Heads are about ¾ inch diameter, densely packed with tiny pea-shaped flowers. Flowers have a sharply pointed upward curved petal (standard) with small lateral wings below it and a keel in the throat. Flowers are light pink to white turning darker pink with age, giving the head a distinct two-tone color pattern as lower blossoms on the globe mature first. The short, hairless calyx tube holding the flower is white with distinctly green teeth.

Leaves and stems:

Leaves are palmately compound in 3s on a stalk up to 3 inches long. Leaflets are ½ to 1 inch long, ¼ to 1/3 inch wide, hairless, oval to elliptic, rounded at the tip, tapered at base, and stalkless, with very finely serrated sharp teeth around the edges.

A pair of leafy appendages (stipules) attached at the leaf joint are somewhat tear-drop shaped to triangular, fused at the base for about 1/3 its length, tapering to a sharp point, papery with clear parallel green veination. Basal crown has multiple stems spreading and ascending, with leaves and associated flower head alternately spaced at intervals up the stem. Stems are hairless.

Notes:

This native of Eurasia has been widely cultivated at a forage crop around the world. It readily escapes cultivation as is now widely established along road sides, and waste places throughout almost all the US and Canada, including Alaska and Hawaii. It is similar to the ubiquitous White Clover (Trifolium repens), which has a light chevron pattern on its leaflets and leaves rising perpendicular to the stem running along the ground. Also similar is Red Clover (Trifolium pratens), which also has a chevron pattern on the leaflets and flowers that are more rosy purplish.