Mountain clover (Trifolium montanum L.)
Mountain clover is perennial and the main inflorescences looks a little like white clover. However, it is easy to tell them apart: mountain clover grows upright and becomes 20-40 cm high, while white clover has a creeping habit. The three-jointed leaflets are serrated, lanceolate and pointed in mountain clover, rounded and smaller in white clover. The colour of the flower is more yellow-white than the flower of the white clover, and during flowering it stretches and the heads become ovoid. The flowers smell sweet and attract pollinators such as bees, butterflies, and small beetles.
Danish: bjerg-kløver – Finnish: mäkiapila – Icelandic: bergsmári – Norwegian: bakkekløver – Swedish: backklöver
Text and top photo by Kristina Bjureke.
Mountain clover grows in Europe and eastwards towards the Caucasus and Iran. It is mainly found on dry, calcareous meadows and slopes. It benefits from well-managed cultivation and low-level interference. It is disadvantaged by heavy grazing, overgrowth, early grazing and fertilization. Fewer suitable habitats and fragmentation have had a negative impact on mountain clover according to a German study (Schleuning et al. 2009).
A Species in Decline
The Mountain clover’s habitats have declined in the Nordic region. In Sweden it grows mainly in the south-eastern part, where Öland has thriving populations, but otherwise it is in decline. In Finland, it is only found in Åland and the southwestern part of the mainland. In Denmark and Norway, it is very rare. In Norway, it only grows wild in one locality: Hovedøya in Oslo. Mountain clover is the county flower for Oslo and is one of several species that has its northernmost outpost around Oslo. We assume that this species had a greater distribution during the warm period after the last ice age. After the climate became cooler about 2500 years ago, the distribution of mountain clover was reduced.
It is one of the driest and hardest clover species and is therefore not grown as a fodder crop, unlike red, white and Alsike clover. As it is a close relative of these cultivated fodder plants the plant is regarded as a crop wild relative.
References:
Solstad H, Elven R, Arnesen G, Eidesen PB, Gaarder G, Hegre H, Høitomt T, Mjelde M og Pedersen O (24.11.2021). Karplanter: Vurdering av bakkekløver Trifolium montanum for Norge. Rødlista for arter 2021. Artsdatabanken. http://www.artsdatabanken.no/lister/rodlisteforarter/2021/25794
SLU Artdatabanken (2024). Artfakta: Trifolium montanum. https://artfakta.se/taxa/trifolium-montanum-221333
Schleuning, M., Niggemann, M., Becker, U. & Matthies, D. 2009. Negative effects of habitat degradation and fragmentation on the declining grassland plant Trifolium montanum. – Basic and Applied Ecology 10(1). 61-69.
