Starry clover

Trifolium stellatum is a softly hairy annual herb of the Fabaceae family growing 10-30 cm tall with a slender taproot. Stems are erect to ascending, simple or sparsely branched at the base and densely clothed with long spreading white silky hairs. Leaves are alternate, long-petiolate and trifoliolate with obcordate to broadly obovate leaflets 8-15 mm long, finely serrate towards the apex and softly pubescent on both surfaces; stipules are conspicuous, ovate-acuminate, scarious-membranous and clasping the petiole base. Flower heads are solitary on long leafless peduncles arising from the upper leaf axils; each is globose, 1.5-2.5 cm across, dense and few-flowered (12-30 florets). The pea-flowers are small, with a pale pink to whitish corolla shorter than the conspicuously hairy ten-ribbed calyx; calyx teeth are linear-subulate, plumose with spreading hairs, and at fruiting they become spreading and stellately radiating to give the head a striking star-shaped appearance (whence the name). The pod is small, ovoid, included in the persistent hardened calyx and contains one or two yellowish-brown seeds. Native to dry, sunny, sandy or rocky open ground throughout the Mediterranean basin and adjacent western Asia.