Large hop clover

Trifolium campestre, the hop trefoil or hop clover, is a small annual herb of the family Fabaceae growing 10 to 35 cm tall, with slender, often somewhat downy, sprawling to ascending stems. The leaves are trifoliate, the three small oval leaflets finely toothed, with the terminal leaflet on a slightly longer stalk. The flowers are tiny and pea-like, packed into rounded to oval yellow heads of twenty to forty blooms; as they age the heads turn pale brown and the dry persistent petals resemble miniature hop cones, giving the plant its common name. It flowers through summer. Native to Europe, North Africa and western Asia and widely naturalised, hop trefoil grows in dry grassland, sandy banks, roadsides and waste ground on well-drained soils.