Plant · P-033

White Clover

Trifolium repens

A low, evergreen creeping legume that spreads across the ground on above-ground runners, rooting and putting up new leaves and flowers wherever a runner touches soil. It pulls nitrogen from the air and shares it with whatever grows beside it, which is why it is sown into pastures and lawns worldwide - grass grown alongside it can out-yield grass fed heavy nitrogen fertilizer on its own. Livestock of every kind eat it eagerly and bees work its flowers hard, but grazing it alone can bloat cattle and sheep, so it is almost always sown mixed with grass. Free-range poultry and pigs strip it out fast, so it only holds up as a ground cover where those animals are kept off it.