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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Fabaceae
Trifolium lappaceum

Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 768 (1753).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Burdock clover, bristly (or lappa) clover, burr-clover.

Description:
Annual, with numerous usually branched erect or ascending glabrescent bright-green stems 5-40 cm long; lower leaves alternate, distinctly petiolate; upper subsessile, often opposite; leaflets shortly petiolulate, obovate-cuneate, 5-20 mm long, rounded or truncate, denticulate, veins hardly anastomosing, parallel, pubescent; stipules oblong, 6-10 mm long, distinctly veined, often coloured, hairy, free portion lanceolate-subulate.

Flowers sessile, numerous, 20 to many, in globose rarely ovoid heads 12-20 mm wide on peduncles up to 35 mm long in fruit; calyx 7-9 mm long, tube obconical or campanulate, with 20 conspicuous veins, glabrous or glabrescent (rarely hairy); throat open, glabrous or ciliate, thickened in fruit; teeth subequal, longer than the tube, the triangular base prominently 5-veined, filiform, acute and hairy above; corolla pink, equalling the calyx at anthesis, much shorter than the calyx in fruit.

Pod ovoid, c. 2 mm long, with a thickened apex, enclosed, 1-seeded; seed ovoid, c. 1.5 mm long, yellow to brown, smooth.

image of FSA2_Trifolium_lap.jpg
Image source: fig. 353I in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Distribution:  S.Aust.: SL, SE.   native to the Mediterranean and the Middle-East.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: Nov. — Dec.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: Varies considerably in habit and size.

Author: Not yet available


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