Family: Fabaceae
Trifolium stellatum
Citation:
L., Sp. Pl. 769 (1753).
Synonymy: Not Applicable Common name: Star clover.
Description:
Annual, stems to 35 (usually 8-20) cm long, erect or ascending, simple or branched from the base, with dense patent hairs; leaves on long or short petioles with subsessile obcordate leaflets 8-12 mm long and denticulate towards the apex; stipules ovate or obovate, foliaceous, to 1 cm long, subobtuse or subacute, the margins and veins bright-green.
Flowers few (to 10), shortly pedicellate in globular terminal heads 15-25 (-30 in fruit) mm across on peduncles 5-100 mm long, with appressed or patent hairs; calyx campanulate; tube villous, c. 4 mm long, 10-nerved; teeth about twice as long as the tube, rigid, triangular, with a subulate-acuminate apex, spreading stellately at maturity so as to form large bristly heads, 3-veined, often blackish internally contrasting with the white-woolly hair-tuft which almost closes the throat; corolla 8-12 mm long, pink, rarely purple or yellow, about equalling the calyx.
Pod inserted, obovate, to 3 mm long, scarious, 1-seeded; seed ovoid, c. 2 mm long, brown, smooth.
| Trifolium stellatum. Twig, flower and calyx with infructescence.
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Image source: fig. 354d in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).
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Distribution:
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S.Aust.: KI, SE. W.Aust.; Vic.; Tas.; native to the Mediterranean.
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Conservation status:
naturalised
Flowering time: Oct. — Dec.
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SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia
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Biology:
No text
Author:
Not yet available
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