Trifolium pratense Seeds | Red Clover
LATIN NAME: Trifolium pratense
COMMON NAME: Red Clover
Plant Profile
Red clover is a short-lived perennial legume, 30-60 cm tall, with trifoliate leaves marked with a pale V and dense round heads of pink-purple flowers from May to September. The heads are made of up to a hundred small pea flowers, and they are one of the best bee plants in any garden.
The plant has a deep taproot and a fibrous root system, and it fixes nitrogen through nodules that are visible when a plant is lifted. It is grown as a forage crop, a green manure and a bee plant, and in a garden it earns its place on all three counts.
Red clover is native to Europe, western Asia and North Africa and has been carried around the world as a pasture plant. It is the national flower of Denmark, and it has been the subject of more agricultural research than almost any other legume of temperate regions.
Science & Biotechnology
Red clover is rich in isoflavones, particularly formononetin and biochanin A, which are phytoestrogens. Those compounds are the basis of its use in menopause preparations, and they are also why grazing animals can show fertility effects on a diet of pure clover.
The plant fixes nitrogen through a symbiosis with Rhizobium leguminosarum biovar trifolii, and an established stand can add 100-200 kg of nitrogen per hectare per year. That is why clover is a standard component of ley mixtures and of green manures in organic farming.
Clover flowers are built for long-tongued bumblebees, and the decline of several bumblebee species has been linked to the loss of clover-rich pasture. Honeybees often cannot reach the nectar and learn to rob it by biting a hole at the base of the flower, which is a good thing to watch for in a garden.
Uses & Benefits
In the garden red clover is sown as a green manure, as a living mulch under fruit trees and as a bee plant. The flowers can be dried for tea, and the young leaves are edible in small quantities. It is also a component of herbal smoking mixtures and of traditional tonics.
As a forage crop it is cut for hay and silage, often mixed with grasses. Commercially the seed is a major agricultural commodity, and clover honey is one of the most common monofloral honeys in Europe. The dried flowers hold their colour for a year and appear in country craftwork and in herbal tea blends.
Growing from Seed
Sow from March to August at 1 cm deep, 10-15 kg per hectare equivalent, or a pinch per square metre in a garden. Germination takes seven to fourteen days. Inoculate the seed if clover has not grown on the site.
The plant prefers neutral to alkaline soil and full sun, and it will not thrive on acid ground. Keep it cut to prevent it becoming leggy, and mow the flowers off before they set seed if self-sowing would be a nuisance. For green manure, cut at flowering and leave the tops to wilt before digging in. On acid ground, apply lime the autumn before sowing, since clover fails where the pH sits below 6.
Our Take
The best bee plant in the catalogue by weight of nectar, and a crop that pays the soil back as it flowers.
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