White Clover

Like the Red Clover, White Clover is a native plant.

Species introduction

At a glance
Latin name: 
Trifolium repens
Family: 
Legumes
Family Latin name: 
FABACEAE or LEGUMINOSAE
Category: 
Flowering Plants
Vernacular names: 

Milky blobs, Sheepy-maa's, Bee-bread

Species description

Species description

Like the Red Clover, this is a native plant.  White clover infusions purify the blood and can be used as a cold compress on boils.  White clover flowers are sweet when sucked, and called 'milkies'.  The flowers, from May, may be white, pink, or even purple, but can be distinguished from Red Clover because the leaves of White Clover have toothed edges and are hairless.

Species photographs

Larger photograph(s) (click to magnify)

Details

Species family information

Legume seedpod crops are commercially very important for human consumption, livestock forage, silage, and nitrogen-rich 'green manure'.

Category information

Nucleic multicellular photosynthetic organisms lived in freshwater communities on land as long ago as a thousand million years, and their terrestrial descendants are known from the late Pre-Cambrian 850 million years ago. Embryophyte land plants are known from the mid Ordovician, and land plant structures such as roots and leaves are recognisable in mid Devonian fossils. Seeds seem to have evolved by the late Devonian. The Embryophytes are green land plants that form the bulk of the Earth’s vegetation. They have specialised reproductive organs and nurture the young embryo sporophyte. Most obtain their energy by photosynthesis, using sunlight to synthesise food from Carbon Dioxide and Water.

The earliest known plant group is the Archaeplastida, which were autotrophic. Listing just the surviving descendants, which evolved in turn, we have the Red Algae, the Chlorophyte Green Algae, the Charophyte Green Algae, and then the Embryophyta or land plants. The earliest embryophytes were the Liverworts, followed by the Hornworts, and the Mosses. Then we have the Vascular Plants, the Lycophytes and Ferns, followed by the Spermatophytes or seed plants, the Gnetophytes, Conifers, Ginkgos, and Cycads, and finally the Magnoliophyta (Angiosperms) or flowering plants.