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Perennial herbs, rhizomatous, pubescent to glabrescent. Stems decumbent or ascending, 20-50 cm, branches flexuous. Leaves palmately 3-foliolate, lower long petiolate, upper shortly petiolate; stipules linear-lanceolate, adnate to petiole for ca. 1/2 their length, free blade acuminately lanceolate; leaflets elliptic to broadly lanceolate, 15-55 × 6-20 mm, lateral veins 10-12, arching, branched, running into small marginal teeth, base rounded, margins entire to obscurely serrate, apex obtuse to acute. Flowers numerous, in globose to broadly ovate, terminal, solitary or paired, sessile or shortly pedunculate heads. Calyx 5-6 mm, veins 10; teeth subulate, unequal, lower tooth longest. Corolla purple, 15-18 mm; standard oblong-ovate. Legume ovoid. Seed 1, brown, angled. Fl. May-Jul, fr. Jun-Aug.
Biennial or perennial, ascending, 2–5 dm, the stems sparsely appressed-pubescent; stipules tapering to a long, lance-linear tip; lfls elliptic or oblong, widest at or below the middle; heads subglobose, sessile or on peduncles to 3 cm; fls 14–20 mm; cal-tube glabrous or sparsely hirsute, conspicuously pubescent within at the throat, 3.5–4.5 mm, the lobes narrow, spreading hairy, one 4–6 mm, four 2–5 mm; pet purple, the standard obovate-oblong, about as long as the wings; 2n=ca 70–84+. Native of Europe, sometimes escaped from cult. in e. U.S. and N.S. June–Aug.
A clover herb.
