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Genus of legumes

Clover, also called trefoil, are plants of the genus Trifolium (from Latin tres 'three' + folium 'leaf'), consisting of about 300 species of flowering plants in the legume family Fabaceae originating in Europe. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution with highest diversity in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, but many species also occur in South America and Africa, including at high altitudes on mountains in the tropics. They are small annual, biennial, or short lived perennial herbaceous plants, typically growing up to tall. The leaves are trifoliate (rarely, they have four or more leaflets; the more leaflets the leaf has, the rarer it is; see four leaf clover), with stipules adnate to the leaf stalk, and heads or dense spikes of small red, purple, white, or yellow flowers; the small, few seeded pods are enclosed in the calyx. Honeybees can also pollinate clover, and beekeepers are often in heavy demand from farmers with clover pastures. Farmers reap the benefits of increased reseeding that occurs with increased bee activity, which means that future clover yields remain abundant. Beekeepers benefit from the clover bloom, as clover is one of the main nectar sources for honeybees. Trifolium repens, white or Dutch clover, is a perennial abundant in meadows and good pastures. The flowers are white or pinkish, becoming brown and deflexed as the corolla fades. Trifolium hybridum, alsike or Swedish clover, is a perennial which was introduced early in the 19th century and has now become naturalized in Britain. The flowers are white or rosy, and resemble those of Trifolium repens. Trifolium medium, meadow or zigzag clover, a perennial with straggling flexuous stems and rose purple flowers,

Other species are: Trifolium arvense, hare's foot trefoil; found in fields and dry pastures, a soft hairy plant with minute white or pale pink flowers and feathery sepals; Trifolium fragiferum, strawberry clover, with globose, rose purple heads and swollen calyxes; Trifolium campestre, hop trefoil, on dry pastures and roadsides, the heads of pale yellow flowers suggesting miniature hops; and the somewhat similar Trifolium dubium, common in pastures and roadsides, with smaller heads and small yellow flowers turning dark brown. although red clover should be avoided by pregnant women. The plant is a traditional Native American food, which is eaten both raw and after drying and smoking the roots. The seeds from the blossoms are used to make bread. It is also possible to make tea from the blossoms. Clovers occasionally have four leaflets, instead of the usual three. These four leaf clovers, like other rarities, are considered lucky. Clovers can also have five, six, or more leaflets, but these are rarer still. The clover's outer leaf structure varies in physical orientation. The record for most leaflets is 56, set on May 10, 2009. This beat the "21 leaf clover", a record set in June 2008 by the same discoverer, who had also held the prior Guinness World Record of 18. A common idiom is "to be (or to live) in clover", meaning to live a carefree life of ease, comfort, or prosperity. A common saying in surgery [regarding the appearance of wound after hemorrhoidectomy] is "If it looks like clover, the trouble is over; if it looks like dahlia, it’s surely a failure.”. A cloverleaf interchange is named for the resemblance to the leaflets of a (four leaf) clover when viewed from the air.

The first extensive classification of Trifolium had been done by Michael Zohary and David Heller, and it was subsequently released in 1984. They divided the genus into eight sections: Lotoidea, Paramesus, Mistyllus, Vesicamridula, Chronosemium, Trifolium, Trichoecephalum, and Involucrarium, with Lotoidea placed most basally. Within this classification system, Trifolium repens falls within section Lotoidea, the largest and least heterogeneous section. Lotoidea contains species from America, Africa, and Eurasia, considered a clade because of their inflorescence shape, floral structure, and legume that protrudes from the calyx. However, these traits are not unique to the section, and are shared with many other species in other sections. Zohary and Heller argued that the presence of these traits in other sections proved the basal position of Lotoidea, because they were ancestral. Aside from considering this section basal, they did not propose relationships between other sections. Since then, molecular data has both questioned and confirmed the proposed phylogeny from Zohary and Heller. A genus wide molecular study has since proposed a new classification system, made up of two subgenera, Chronosemium and Trifolium. This recent reclassification further divides subgenus Trifolium into eight sections. The molecular data supports the monophyletic nature of three sections proposed by Zohary and Heller (Tripholium, Paramesus, and Trichoecepalum), but not of Lotoidea (members of this section have since been reclassified into five other sections). Other molecular studies, although smaller, support the need to reorganize Lotoidea.