Botanical name: Trifolium repens
Folk names: Milky blobs, bee-bread, honeystalks

Type: Perennial

Wildlife: High-quality pollen and nectar loved by all kinds of bumblebees. Caterpillar plant of the Common Blue butterfly (nibbles its trefoil leaves), Burnet Companion and Mother Shipton moths.

Decorative merit: White globose flowers 3cm long, forming oval clusters, held on hairy stems with grey-green, oval to elliptical leaves marked with a pale ‘V’. Lower growing than red clover, with a creeping, sprawling habit.

Flowers: Flowers May to October

Where: Lawns, mini meadows, front of borders and wild patches. Good for filling in cracks and corners or as ground cover – will spread by stolons to increase year on year.

Folklore: There are a wealth of lore, legends and symbolism about this plant. The white flowers can be pulled out of the heads and sucked for a bead of ‘honey’. Look out for the lucky four-leaved clover which was seen as a powerful talisman.

Pea family relative of birdsfoot trefoil and red clover.

Donate seeds to Exeter Seed Bank