The tutor shares another yard find.

In yesterday’s post I led, with dovefoot geranium, the identification of members of the collection of trailing weeds in a back patch of the lawn. Today I continue with a fringe member: small hop-clover.

The small hop-clover has the classic three – lobed leaves one imagines. Both the leaves and flowers are small: the leaves might be typically around 1 cm across, while the flower heads are smaller. One head comprises many separate yellow flowers, each only a few mm long. The guide says that, if you examine one of those, it resembles the classic pea-flower shape. However, they’re small enough that you might need a magnifying glass to notice.

The small hop-clover trails over the ground rather untidily. However, it fortifies the soil with nitrogen, so is definitely worth having in the lawn.

I’ll be sharing more plant identifications in future posts:)

Source:

Pojar, Jim and Andy MacKinnon. Plants of Coastal British Columbia. Vancouver:
  BC Ministry of Forests and Lone Pine Publishing, 1994.