Botanical name: Trifolium repens
Folk names: Lucky clover, bee-bread

Type: Perennial

Wildlife: High-quality pollen and nectar loved by all kinds of bumblebees. Its trefoil leaves are a caterpillar foodplant of the common blue butterfly and the burnet companion moth so an important plant to support breeding habitat but also to increase the caterpillars in your garden, which will support hedgehogs (if they have access).

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