Sea clover

Trifolium squamosum, commonly known as sea clover, is a small annual herb in the family Fabaceae native to coastal habitats of the Mediterranean basin, western Europe and the Black Sea region, including coastal southern England and the Atlantic coast of France. It grows on saline or brackish ground, the upper edges of salt marshes, sea walls, grazed coastal grasslands and damp pastures. The plant is erect to ascending, 10 to 40 centimetres tall, with slender, often reddish, somewhat hairy stems. The trifoliate leaves bear three narrowly obovate to elliptic leaflets 1 to 2 centimetres long with finely toothed margins, on petioles enclosed at the base by long pointed sheathing stipules. The flower heads are sessile or shortly stalked, ovoid to conical, 1 to 2 centimetres long, of pale pink to flesh-coloured pea-shaped florets, each subtended by the persistent membranous calyx; as the seed matures the head becomes hardened and the divergent, awn-tipped calyx teeth give the head a scaly, bristly appearance referenced by the epithet squamosum. The fruit is a small one to two-seeded legume enclosed within the calyx.