YELLOW SWEET CLOVER YELLOW MELILOT

(Melilotus officinalis) Pea family



Resembling the white sweet clover, except in color. (q.v.)





YELLOW or HOP CLOVER

(Trifotium agrarium) Pea family



Flowers - Yellow, scale-like, overlapping in a densely

many-flowered oblong head about 1/2 in. long, becoming brown with

age. Stem: Ascending, branched, 6 to 18 in. high. Leaves:

3-foliate, very finely toothed.

Preferred Habitat - Waste places, fields, roadsides.

Flowering Season - May-September.

Distribution - Virginia to Iowa, and far northward.



What did the sulphur butterflies provide as food for their

caterpillar babies before the commonest clovers came over from

the Old World to possess the soil? Wherever a trifolium grows,

there one is sure to see



"gallow-yellow butterflies,

Like blooms of lorn primroses blowing loose,

when autumn winds arise."



The BLACKSEED HOP CLOVER, BLACK or HOP MEDIC (Medicago lupulina),

with even smaller, bright yellow oblong heads which turn black

when ripe, lies on the ground, its branches spreading where they

leave the root. A native of Europe and Asia, it is now

distributed as a common weed throughout our area, for there is

scarcely a month in the year when it does not bloom and set seed.

It is still another of the many plants known as the shamrock.