Narrow clover

Trifolium angustifolium, the narrow clover or narrow-leaved crimson clover, is a slender erect annual herb in the family Fabaceae native to the Mediterranean basin and extending east to western Asia, and naturalized in parts of Australia, North America, and southern Africa. Plants are softly hairy throughout and reach 20-50 cm in height, with simple or sparingly branched stems. Leaves are alternate and trifoliate; the three leaflets are very narrowly linear-lanceolate to almost grass-like, 2-5 cm long and only 2-4 mm wide, with smooth or finely toothed margins, an acute tip, and silvery-silky pubescence on the lower surface. The leaflets sit on a long petiole and are subtended by lanceolate stipules with a green herbaceous tip. The inflorescence is a dense narrowly cylindrical to elongate-conical terminal head 2-6 cm long and 1-1.5 cm wide, composed of many small pink to pale rose pea-flowers crowded among shaggy white-hairy calyces with five long awned teeth. Flowering takes place from April to July. The fruit is a tiny one-seeded legume enclosed within the persistent calyx. The species inhabits dry sandy pastures, fallow fields, garrigues, and roadside verges.