Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses - White prairie-clover

WHITE PRAIRIE-CLOVER

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Dalea candida Michx. ex Willd.

Riley County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 1-3 feet

Family: Fabaceae - Bean Family

Flowering Period: June, July, August

Stems:

Erect or widely spreading, 1 to several, slender, straight, simple or sparingly branched above, glabrous, ribbed, sometimes glandular-dotted.

Leaves:

Alternate, short-stalked or nearly sessile, odd-pinnately compound, .75 to 2.5 inches long, .5 to 1 inch wide; leaflets 5-13, elliptic to oblanceolate, .25 to 1.5 inch long, glabrous, minutely glandular-dotted below; tips usually sharp-pointed.

Inflorescences:

Spikes, cylindric, 1 to 3 inches long, about 1/2 inch thick, densely flowered, terminal.

Flowers:

Calyces 5-toothed, 10-ribbed, glabrous or pubescent; corollas papilionaceous, less than 1/4 inch long, white; banner petals erect, larger than wing and keel petals; stamens 5, filaments united.

Fruits:

Pods, oval, less than 1/5 inch long, glandular, protruding from persistent calyces, 1-seeded.

Habitat:

Prairies, rocky hillsides, roadsides, waste places, and open, rocky woods.

Distribution:

Principally east 2/3 of Kansas.

Forage Value:

White prairie-clover is readily grazed by livestock and will disappear in overgrazed areas.

Uses:

Native Americans steeped dried leaves in water to make a tea, used the leaves to create medicine applied to wounds, and chewed the sweet-tasting roots.

Comments:

The taproot can descend to 6 feet.

White prairie-clover inflorescence