RABBIT-FOOT CLOVER 



Stem. — Six inches to a foot high, erect, slender, branched, 

 leafy, covered with fine, silky, gray hair. 



Leaves. — Compound, alternate, three-foliate; with short 

 petioles and narrow stipules. Leaflets linear or oblance- 

 olate, entire, obtuse at apex and narrowed at base. 



Flower-heads. — Terminal, 

 peduncled, oblong, or cylin- 

 dric, one-half to one inch 

 long, very dense; calyx very 

 silky. Flowers papiHona- 

 ceous, minute, white or pink- 

 ish, much shorter than the 

 calyx, which extends in five, 

 slender, red threads thickly 

 fringed with silky gray or 

 pale reddish hairs. Fragrant. 



Fruit. — Pods small, con- 

 taining one or two minute 

 seeds. 



The Rabbit-Foot or 

 Pussy-Toed Clover has soft 

 hairy flower-heads which, 

 when drawn through the 

 hand, suggest the soft paws 

 of kitten or rabbit. The 

 stem and leaves are more 

 or less covered with long, 

 silky hairs, but the longest, 

 softest, and silkiest are on 



the calyxes of the minute, pale pink florets that are 

 crowded into the head. Most of the Clovers of mid- 

 summer are the Clovers of spring that have wandered 

 into the summer, or seedlings ready to produce their 

 best bloom in autumn, but this is a summer flower. 

 The plant grows from six to eighteen inches high, and 



91 



Rabbit-Foot Clover. Trifdlium 

 arvense 



