240 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 



imported true clovers of very different 

 appearance: the tall, branching, rab- 

 bit's foot clover, with its whitish corollas 

 hidden among long and silky calyx 

 lobes, which, combined together in the 

 soft heads, suggest the name it bears; 

 and two delicate little yellow-flowered 

 hop-clovers. 



The sweet clovers are two species of 

 tall fragrant roadside weeds, similar in 

 appearance except that one bears white, 

 and the other yellow flowers. The white 

 sweet clover (fig. 88) is able to follow the 

 road grader and take possession of and 

 thrive in the 

 hardest and most 

 unpromising of 

 soils. 



The medics 



differ from the sweet clovers in 



having bent or spirally twisted pods, 



instead of straight ones. They also 



have shorter flower clusters. One of 



them, alfalfa, is of vast importance 



as a forage crop. It has purple 



flowers . The others are unimportant , 



yellow-flowered species that we find 



in waste places. 



Of all the array of clovers, only the 



white clover and a few of its nearest 



allies in the genus Trifolium are 



native American plants. But all of 



them are interesting and ^worthy of 



a little careful study. Fig. 91. Yeiiow-hop clover. 



Pig. 90. Rabbitt's-foot 

 clover (after Britton and 

 Brown) . 



