_Trifolium pratense_
_Flowers_--Magenta, pink, or rarely whitish, sweet-scented, the tubular
corollas set in dense round, oval, or egg-shaped heads about 1 in. long,
and seated in a sparingly hairy calyx. _Stem:_ 6 in. to 2 ft. high,
branching, reclining, or erect, more or less hairy. _Leaves:_ On long
petioles, commonly compounded of 3, but sometimes of 4 to 11 oval or
oblong leaflets, marked with white crescent, often dark-spotted near
centre; stipules egg-shaped, sharply pointed, strongly veined, more than
1/2 in. long.
_Preferred Habitat_--Fields, meadows, roadsides.
_Flowering Season_--April-November.
_Distribution_--Common throughout Canada and United States.
Meadows bright with clover-heads among the grasses, daisies, and
buttercups in June resound with the murmur of unwearying industry and
rapturous enjoyment. Bumblebees by the tens of thousands buzzing above
acres of the farmer’s clover blossoms should be happy in a knowledge of
their benefactions, which doubtless concern them not at all. They have
never heard the story of the Australians who imported quantities of
clover for fodder, and had glorious fields of it that season, but not a
seed to plant next year’s crops, simply because the farmers had failed
to import the bumblebee. After her immigration the clovers multiplied
prodigiously.
No; the bee’s happiness rests on her knowledge that only the
butterflies’ long tongues can honestly share with her the brimming wells
of nectar in each tiny floret. Children who have sucked them too
appreciate her rapture. If we examine a little flower under the
magnifying glass, we shall see why its structure places it in the pea
family. Bumblebees so depress the keel either when they sip, or feed on
pollen, that their heads and tongues get well dusted with the yellow
powder, which they transfer to the stigmas of other flowers; whereas the
butterflies are of doubtful value, if not injurious, since their long,
slender tongues easily drain the nectar without depressing the keel.
Even if a few grains of pollen should cling to their tongues, it would
probably be wiped off as they withdrew them through the narrow slit,
where the petals nearly meet, at the mouth of the flower. _Bombus
terrestris_ delights in nipping holes at the base of the tube, which
other pilferers also profit by. Our country is so much richer in
butterflies than Europe, it is scarcely surprising that Professor
Robertson found thirteen Lepidoptera out of twenty insect visitors to
this clover in Illinois, whereas Muller caught only eight butterflies on
it out of a list of thirty-nine visitors in Germany. The fritillaries
and the sulphurs are always seen about the clover fields among many
others, and the “dusky wings” and the caterpillar of several species
feed almost exclusively on this plant.
“To live in clover,” from the insect’s point of view at least, may well
mean a life of luxury and affluence. Most peasants in Europe will tell
you that a dream about the flower foretells not only a happy marriage,
but long life and prosperity. For ages the clover has been counted a
mystic plant, and all sorts of good and bad luck were said to attend
the finding of variations of its leaves which had more than the common
number of leaflets. At evening these leaflets fold downward, the side
ones like two hands clasped in prayer, the end one bowed over them. In
this fashion the leaves of the white and other clovers also go to
sleep, to protect their sensitive surfaces from cold by radiation, it
is thought.
White Sweet Clover; Bokhara or Tree Clover; White Melilot; Honey
Lotus
_Melilotus alba_
_Flowers_--Small, white, fragrant, papilionaceous, the standard petal a
trifle longer than the wings; borne in slender racemes. _Stem:_ 3 to 10
ft. tall, branching. _Leaves:_ Rather distant, petioled, compounded of 3
oblong, saw-edged leaflets; fragrant, especially when dry.
_Preferred Habitat_--Waste lands, roadsides.
_Flowering Season_--June-November.
_Distribution_--United States, Europe, Asia.
Both the White and the Yellow Sweet Clover put their leaves to sleep at
night in a remarkable manner: the three leaflets of each leaf twist
through an angle of 90 degrees, until one edge of each vertical blade
is uppermost. The two side leaflets, Darwin found, always tend to face
the north with their upper surface, one facing north-northwest and the
other north-northeast, while the terminal leaflet escapes the chilling
of its sensitive upper surface through radiation by twisting to a
vertical also, but bending to either east or west, until it comes in
contact with the vertical upper surface of either of the side leaflets.
Thus the upper surface of the terminal and of at least one of the side
leaflets is sure to be well protected through the night; one is “left
out in the cold.”
The dried branches of sweet clover will fill a room with delightful
fragrance; but they will not drive away flies, nor protect woollens from
the ravages of moths, as old women once taught us to believe.
* * * * *
The ubiquitous White or Dutch Clover (_Trifolium repens_), whose
creeping branches send up solitary round heads of white or pinkish
flowers on erect, leafless stems, from May to December, in fields, open
waste land, and cultivated places throughout our area, Europe, and Asia,
devotes itself to wooing bees, since these are the only insects that
effect cross-fertilization regularly, other visitors aiding it only
occasionally. Its foliage is the favorite food of very many species of
caterpillars and of all grazing cattle the world around. This is still
another plant frequently miscalled shamrock. Good luck or bad attends
the finding of the leaves, when compounded of an even or an odd number
of leaflets more than the normal count, according to the saying of many
simple-minded folk.