Clover species
Red Clover, Trifolium pratense
The leaves and young flowering heads are edible raw or cooked. The young leaves are harvested before the plant comes into flower, and are used in salads, soups etc. On their own they can be used as a vegetable, cooked like spinach.The leaves are best cooked.
They can be dried, powdered and sprinkled on foods such as boiled rice.
The seed can be sprouted and used in salads. A crisp texture and more robust flavour than alfalfa (Medicago sativa). The seeds are reported as containing trypsin inhibitors. These can interfere with certain enzymes that help in the digestion of proteins, but are normally destroyed if the seed is sprouted first.
The flowers and seed pods can be dried, ground into a powder and used as a flour.
The young flowers can also be eaten raw in salads.
The root can be eaten cooked.
A delicate sweet herb tea is made from the fresh or dried flowers.
The dried leaves impart a vanilla flavour to cakes etc.
Red clover is safe and effective herb with a long history of medicinal usage. It is commonly used to treat skin conditions, normally in combination with other purifying herbs such as Arctium lappa and Rumex crispus.
It is a folk remedy for cancer of the breast, a concentrated decoction being applied to the site of the tumour in order to encourage it to grow outwards and clear the body.
Flavonoids in the flowers and leaves are oestrogenic and may be of benefit in the treatment of menopausal complaints.
The flowering heads are alterative, antiscrofulous, antispasmodic, aperient, detergent, diuretic, expectorant, sedative and tonic. It has also shown anticancer activity, poultices of the herb have been used as local applications to cancerous growths.
Internally, the plant is used in the treatment of skin complaints (especially eczema and psoriasis), cancers of the breast, ovaries and lymphatic system, chronic degenerative diseases, gout, whooping cough and dry coughs.
The plant is normally harvested for use as it comes into flower and some reports say that only the flowers are used.
A yellow dye is obtained from the flowers.
The plant makes a good green manure, it is useful for over-wintering, especially in a mixture with Lolium perenne. Deep rooting, it produces a good bulk.
It is a host to 'clover rot' however, so should not be used too frequently. It can be undersown with cereals though it may be too vigorous.
It is also grown with grass mixtures for land reclamation, it has good nitrogen fixing properties
White clover, Trifolium repens
The leaves are edible raw or cooked as a potherb. The young leaves are harvested before the plant comes into flower and are used in salads, soups etc. They can also be used as a vegetable, cooked like spinach. The leaves are best cooked.
Flowers and seed pods are dried, ground into powder and used as a flour or sprinkled on cooked foods such as boiled rice. Very wholesome and nutritious.
The young flowers can also be used in salads.
The root is edible cooked.
The dried leaves impart a vanilla flavour to cakes etc.
Dried flowering heads are a tea substitute.
The plant is antirheumatic, antiscrophulatic, depurative, detergent and tonic. An infusion has been used in the treatment of coughs, colds, fevers and leucorrhoea.
A tincture of the leaves is applied as an ointment to gout.
An infusion of the flowers has been used as an eyewash.
The plant makes a good green manure, it is useful for over-wintering, especially in a mixture with Lolium perenne. Produces a good bulk. It is a host to 'clover rot' however, so should not be used too frequently.
It can be undersown with cereals or with tomatoes in a greenhouse (sow the seed before planting the tomatoes).
Fairly deep rooting but not very fast growing.
A good fast ground-cover plant for a sunny position.