This is a mountain clover which can be found at heights of between 4,500 feet to 8,000 feet. I have to admit that when I first saw it, I thought it was Trifolium campestre (Hop Trefoil) with a disease or at least going rotten.

I was wrong. This is how it looks when it is healthy. It starts out yellow and in tight heads and then becomes more open while turning chestnut brown. One translated description I found is was this:

"The brown clover is easily recognisable with elegant yellow flower heads that become old brown in colour".

I beg to differ. To me it's scruffy looking thing and I wondered whether its species name was badium because it went bad so quickly. However badium is the Latin for Chestnut. The fact that you can buy seeds for it and get it from garden centres shows that most other people think it has quite an attractive flower.

Well I'm not one of them.

It can be found in the most of the Alps, Pyrenees, the Picos de Europea in northern Spain, the Italian Apennines, the southern Caucasus and dotted around elsewhere.

Trifolium badium Brown Clover Val de Fain, Swiss Alps, 6th July 2010 Previous   Next

Trifolium badium Brown Clover

Verge of path from Pontresina Station, Swiss Alps, 7th July 2010

Added on August 18th 2018