Clover, Red

Name: Red Clover

Botanical Name: Trifolium pratense

Form: wildflower and cultivated agricultural plant

Parts Used: seeds and greens

 

Citation: Guenther, K. (2019, February 21) Red clover as wildlife food [Web log post.] Retrieved: supply the date, from http://wildfoods4wildlife.com

Getting Started

Clover is a super easy foraging or gardening project that anyone can do, and it will be well utilized, especially by the rabbits. However, there are some serious concerns to consider, so make sure you read on about toxic potentials of clovers. Even so, clover greens rank #4 on our Great Greens list and the seed is #25 on our Super Seeds list!

Fabaceae (Pea family)

Faboideae (Pea subfamily)

Trifolieae (Clover tribe)

Trifolium (Clover genus)

The vast majority of clovers are agricultural escapees— red clover, white clover and crimson clover. Clover is used extensively in agriculture because it works symbiotically with a bacteria in the soil to fix nitrogen in the soil (Elpel, 2013) and nitrogen is an element that all plants need to grow. For this reason— as well as its use as livestock fodder— one can readily buy seed inexpensively from farm stores and grow your own. However, farm store seed often comes coated with anti-fungal chemicals to help preserve the seed. I strongly suggest instead purchasing a seed clean of any coatings if you plan to grow clover for your rehab animals.  One source I use is Strictly Medicinal Seeds out of Oregon. Also, clover seed can be collected from the field and the greens can be found often around the un-mowed areas of chemical-free yards.

The big risk about clovers to understand is that many clovers have risk of creating cyanide—which can be a deadly poison. Red or yellow flowered clovers are the safest for use as food for wildlife. White-flowered clovers—especially Trifolium repens— has the potential to be cyanogenic— meaning that it could release cyanide when bruised, chopped, wilted, or frosted. The cyanide compounds of white clover exist as a plant defense probably to ward off small herbivores such as insects, snails and voles. In the wild, you will see rabbits and groundhogs eating these white clovers all the time.  So why don’t they get poisoned? Well, there could be a couple of reasons.

1. Herbivores browse and nibble from plant to plant to plant. They get quite a varied diet of many different plants. They may eat some plants that have cyanide and yet the quantity ingested doesn’t reach the threshold necessary to cause problems.
2. Also, animals have the ability to detoxify small quantities of toxins, even cyanide. So the level of cyanide in the plant may be enough to hurt an insect, but a larger animal like a groundhog will be able to detoxify it.
3. As mentioned, different species of clovers have different amounts of cyanide risk associated with them. But even two clover plants of the same species growing side by side can vary in the amount of cyanide potential they contain, or they can vary in cyanogenic risk at different times in the growing season—and there is just no way to know by looking at them. From what I have read, the clovers native to colder habitats have not evolved to produce cyanide, which is one reason why red clovers do not produce as much, if any, cyanide.
4. A plant that can produce cyanide is likely to do so when the plant becomes wilted, bruised, smashed, or chopped. In the wild, clover is consumed fresh and live—the ideal condition for minimizing cyanide production.

There is another fairly common risk in clovers and that is their potential for nitrate toxicity, which can occur to some plants when fertilizers are applied and the plant temporarily is surging with uptaken nitrates or if the plant stops growing due to drought.

Each reader will have to decide for oneself about the risk vs. benefit of clover. Do more research until you convince yourself one way or the other about what you are comfortable offering your rehab animals.  Read more on this website about both cyanide and nitrate accumulation risks.

If you do choose to offer clovers, here are some ways to decrease risk:

• Use red clover, Trifolium pratense
• Grow clover in pots and offer the live plant in the enclosure, rather than cutting it first.
• If you do use cut clovers, immerse the cut ends in a glass of water and store in the refrigerator until feeding time to reduce wilting.
• Offer the plant as whole as possible; minimize chopping.
• Avoid harvesting clover for a week or more after direct or nearby fertilization or during severe drought.

Clovers have some look-alike plants that do fool people, at times. The main one is wood sorrel, which you can read about and see pictures of HERE. Wood sorrel has heart shaped leaves. Clover leaves are oval to round.

The “tri” of clover’s Trifolium refers to the 3-part leaflet you will find on clovers as well as other clover cousins—alfalfa and black medic of the Medicago genus.

However, there is another plant to probably best to avoid and that is referred to as “sweetclover”— which is not a true clover at all but is instead part of the genus Melilotus—and sweetclover has a higher coumarin content than Trifolium clovers. Coumarin is what makes these plants smell so sweet, but also makes them more dangerous to add as a wildlife food because they act as an anticoagulant to the blood (Elpel, 2013). You are not likely to confuse sweetclovers with the red clover you want because sweetclovers are tall— up to 3 feet— with branches and taller racemes of blooms in white or yellow at the top.

Common Name	Virginia Trifolium Species	Flower Color	Origin	Rare Plant Status
rabbitfoot clover	T. arvense	white and pink	non-native	Not rare
golden clover	T. aureum	yellow	non-native	Not rare
running glade clover	T. calcaricum	White with wine-color veins	Native	Globally imperiled and at highest risk of extinction, only in Lee Co., Virginia and Rutherford Co. Tennessee
field clover	T. campestre	yellow	non-native	Not rare
suckling clover	T. dubium	yellow	non-native	Not rare
alsike clover	T. hybridum	white and pink	non-native	Not rare
crimson clover	T. incarnatum	deep red	non-native	Not rare
red clover	T. pratense	magenta	non-native	Not rare
buffalo clover	T. reflexum	white to pink to red	native	Globally vulnerable, critically imperiled in Virginia
white clover	T. repens	white and pink	non-native	Not rare
arrowleaf clover	T. vesiculosum	white and pink	non-native	Not rare
Kate’s Mountain Clover	T. virginicum	creamy white with purple veins	native	Globally vulnerable, vulnerable in Virginia

Virginia Botanical Associates. (Accessed January 2016). Digital Atlas of the Virginia Flora (http://www.vaplantatlas.org). c/o Virginia Botanical Associates, Blacksburg.

Key Features to look for:

In addition to using the identification guide of your choice, here are a couple of features you should see on red clover:

• Leaves consisting of three leaflets with a lighter gray/green chevron pattern on each leaflet (sometimes faint)
• Whole plant less than knee high, usually
• Stems are hairy, (look closely)
• Dozens and dozens of tiny pink flowers form a single globe of flowers (inflorescence)  atop each stem

Risks:  Some species with white-flowered clovers can especially produce cyanide. Clovers can also cause bloat, photosensitization, and negative estrogen effects, which has been documented in horses and cattle. All clovers can accumulate nitrates. (Canadian Biodiversity Info System, Retrieved on 8/6/17 from the Canadian Biodiversity  Information Facility at http://www.cbif.gc.ca/eng/species-bank/canadian-poisonous-plants-information-system/canadian-poisonous-plants-information-system/?id=1370403266275)

Flower Description: The magenta flower head of red clover are round and consist of many small individual pea-like, irregular flowers. Pea-like flowers have a large top petal, two smaller wide petals called “wings’, and the bottom two petals are fused to form a “keel”, which looks like a folded petal at the bottom with a ridge down the center. With a hand lens, you can see that each of clovers many flowers consist of these wings and keels.

Leaf Description: The red clover leaf consists of three leaflets whose edges (margins) are smooth (entire) or finely toothed or not toothed, and surface of leaf is somewhat hairy. The middle leaflet of the leaf has almost no stalk (petiole). Leaves are blunt-tipped and usually have a gray-white “V” or chevron marking in the center of each leaflet blade. This chevron is sometimes quite obvious, sometimes more faint, but always there.

Seed Size: Irregular shape, tan color seeds look like little beans, proving yet again this is a legume! Seed is 1/16 inch (1.5 mm), roundish.

Harvesting

		Jan		Feb		Mar		Apr		May		Jun		Jul		Aug		Sep		Oct		Nov		Dec
		winter		winter		late winter		early spring		spring		late spring		early summer		summer		late summer		early fall		fall		late fall
seeds																x	x	x	x
greens							x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x

Does this lend itself to being good enrichment item?  Maybe. Clover regenerates after you cut it, a little like grass does, so it may be possible to grow greens right in an enclosure in a shallow pan or pot and allow the mammals to graze at will. You may want to seed multiple containers and switch them out weekly to re-grow and revitalize—a “field rotation” where you actually rotate the field rather than the animals!

Nutrition: Greens are high in protein and carbohydrates. Clovers pack a protein punch nutritionally. Red clover is considered the most digestible of the clovers and contain flavonoids which give color to the flower and act as an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant (Elpel, 2013).

Harvesting Greens:  Cut whole plants leaving roots in the ground and the plant will re-grow. Or pull up whole plant with roots attached and store in water in refrigerator to reduce wilting risks.

How to Store Prepared Greens: 

As already mentioned, clover greens should be used quickly and kept from wilting for safety reasons. For this particular green, I suggest pulling the whole plant if possible and leaving the root on. Immediately submerge root in bucket water, even while out in the field. Transfer to a glass of water and store upright in the refrigerator with a loose baggie over the top of the greens. Minimize chopping or bruising of the plant, use within a day or so, and never use if wilted.

Harvesting Seeds: Each flower head of clover is made up of many 30-100 individual flowers attached to a cone like structure (staminal tube) that sits atop the flower stalk. When the pink flower petals lose their color and turn brown, the seed inside is maturing. The seed is ready to harvest when you can pinch the dry brown petals and easily pull the flowers away from the remaining staminal tube cone.

What you now have is the petals, united sepals and seeds. The seeds are very small and irregularly shaped but smooth, up to about 3/32 inch (2 mm). The cone structure (united sepal) that surrounds the seeds, and is the base for the petals, is about ¼ inch (6 mm) long.

At this point, the seeds should fall out of the flowers’ sepals just by tossing, stirring and flipping the flowers around in a large bowl. The heavier seeds will fall to the bottom, the petals and sepals rise to the top. You can use a sieve to separate the seeds from the dry brown flower bits. You will undoubtedly have some of the sepals mixed in with the seeds, but jostling the pan, the dry sepals and any leftover petals should rise to the sit on top of the seeds where you can carefully pinch more of them out, if you choose.

How to Store Prepared Seeds: Once cleaned and fully dried, choose a low humidity day—not a rainy day—to jar up your seed.

Glass or metal works best, because all plastics are somewhat porous to humidity. Canning jars and lids work well. Place seed in a tightly sealed, glass container and store in a dark, cool area for up to 1 year. Refrigeration and freezing work well. Label the airtight container with the seed name, date of harvest and which animals it should be used for. 

If you intend to keep the seed longer than one year, jar up the seeds in two stages. First, jar the seeds up using a desiccant for up to 1 week. Then check the seed for dryness, and if dry enough, remove the desiccant and immediately repack the seed into an airtight container. Read more about drying seeds and using desiccants under the tab “Food Harvest, Process and Storage: Picking, Curing, Threshing, Winnowing, Drying and Storing Seed.”

Keep stored seed in an airtight glass or metal container in a cool, dark place. Refrigeration and freezing works well, but allow container to warm to room temperature before opening. Discard any seed that ever appears moldy. See instructions under the tab labeled “Food Harvest, Process and Storage.”   http://www.wildfoods4wildlife.com

 Rare Species in Virginia

Do you live in one of these Virginia counties? If so, be aware that there are some species near you that may be threatened or endangered. Do more research to make sure you are identifying your target species correctly and not harvesting a threatened species!

Running glade clover—with its white flowers – is globally and locally extremely threatened plant known only to exists in Lee Co., Virginia and Rutherford Co., Tennessee. At a glance, it could be easily mistaken for white clover. But you would not be likely to confuse it with red clover, if you see it in bloom since the flower color is different. Running glade clover has above-ground runners (stolons) like what you may have seen connecting strawberry plants. But so does white clover (T. repens). So, it might be best to use only clover you grow yourself from seed if you live in one of these two counties and not risk harvesting a plant threatened with extinction.

Buffalo clover also can easily be mistaken for a white clover, but has larger flower heads, is taller overall and there are no white watermark chevrons on the leaves according to Dr.  John Hilty at http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/weeds/plants/white_clover.htm

County in Virginia	Species	Alert
Allegheny	Kate’s Mountain Clover	Globally vulnerable, vulnerable in Virginia
Amelia	buffalo clover	Globally vulnerable, critically imperiled in Virginia
Augusta	Kate’s Mountain Clover	Globally vulnerable, vulnerable in Virginia
Bath	Kate’s Mountain Clover	Globally vulnerable, vulnerable in Virginia
Botetourt	Kate’s Mountain Clover	Globally vulnerable, vulnerable in Virginia
Craig	Kate’s Mountain Clover	Globally vulnerable, vulnerable in Virginia
Cumberland	buffalo clover	Globally vulnerable, critically imperiled in Virginia
Culpepper	Kate’s Mountain Clover	Globally vulnerable, vulnerable in Virginia
Fairfax	buffalo clover	Globally vulnerable, critically imperiled in Virginia
Franklin	Kate’s Mountain Clover	Globally vulnerable, vulnerable in Virginia
Frederick	Kate’s Mountain Clover	Globally vulnerable, vulnerable in Virginia
Giles	buffalo clover	Globally vulnerable, critically imperiled in Virginia
Halifax	buffalo clover	Globally vulnerable, critically imperiled in Virginia
Highland	Kate’s Mountain Clover	Globally vulnerable, vulnerable in Virginia
Lee	running glade clover	Globally imperiled  and at highest risk of extinction, only in  Lee Co., Virginia and Rutherford Co. Tennessee
Loudon	Kate’s Mountain Clover	Globally vulnerable, vulnerable in Virginia
Mecklenburg	buffalo clover	Globally vulnerable, critically imperiled in Virginia
Pittsylvania	buffalo clover	Globally vulnerable, critically imperiled in Virginia
Prince George	buffalo clover	Globally vulnerable, critically imperiled in Virginia
Prince William	buffalo clover	Globally vulnerable, critically imperiled in Virginia
Rockbridge	Kate’s Mountain Clover	Globally vulnerable, vulnerable in Virginia
Rockingham	Kate’s Mountain Clover	Globally vulnerable, vulnerable in Virginia
Shenandoah	Kate’s Mountain Clover	Globally vulnerable, vulnerable in Virginia
Sussex	buffalo clover	Globally vulnerable, critically imperiled in Virginia
Warren	Kate’s Mountain Clover	Globally vulnerable, vulnerable in Virginia

(Townsend, John F., 2015)

Feed red clover to:

Book Resources:

Elpel, T.J. (2013) Botany in a Day (APG). Pony, Montana: Hops Press, LLC.

Martin, A.C., Zim, H.S., Nelson, A.L. (1951). American Wildlife and Plants: A Guide to Wildlife Food Habits. New York: Dover Publications.

Scott, M. (2013). Songbird Diet Index. National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association, St. Cloud, MN.

Townsend, J. F. (2015, April)  Rare Plants Natural Heritage Technical Report 15-10. (Unpublished Report) Richmond, Virginia: Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Division of Natural Heritage.

On-Line Resources:

Canadian Biodiversity Info System, Retrieved on 8/6/17 from the Canadian Biodiversity  Information Facility at http://www.cbif.gc.ca/eng/species-bank/canadian-poisonous-plants-information-system/canadian-poisonous-plants-information-system/?id=1370403266275)

Coladonato, Milo. 1993. Trifolium repens. In: Fire Effects Information System, [Online]. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory (Producer). Available: http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/forb/trirep/all.html [2016, December 24].

Hilty, J. (2002). White clover. Retrieved March 1, 2017 from http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/weeds/plants/white_clover.htm

USDA, NRCS. 2015. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 4 January 2016). National Plant Data Team, Greensboro, NC 27401-4901 USA.

Virginia Botanical Associates. (Accessed January 2016). Digital Atlas of the Virginia Flora (http://www.vaplantatlas.org). c/o Virginia Botanical Associates, Blacksburg.