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Shamrocks and Arkansas Clover
Some people say that shamrocks only grow on Irish ground, but Arkansas is home to white clover as well as 16 other clover species, most of which are not native. Historically, four native species were known from Arkansas, but only one is seen today with any regularity.
Buffalo clover (Trifolium reflexum) is the most widespread of our native clovers. An annual clump-forming species, it occurs in a variety of open habitats (open woodlands, streambanks, prairies, glade margins, and even roadsides and clearings through these habitats) but cannot really be considered common. It is often associated with high quality native habitats. Buffalo clover comes in a variety of flower colors, which may or may not have some geographic or habitat correlation. In the sandy open woods of the upper Gulf Coastal Plain south of Little Rock, the flowers of buffalo clover are a pale pink. Along rocky river banks and stream terraces in the eastern Ouachitas, it often has crimson red flowers. The flowers are nearly white in the igneous glades of the northern Coastal Plain near Bauxite and are creamy yellow in the open woodlands of the Arkansas Valley and southern Ozarks.
Carolina clover (Trifolium carolinianum), another annual species, is known from seventeen Arkansas counties but appears to have declined dramatically in the last century. Nearly all of the known collections are historical, with most made between the 1880s and the 1940s, and very few made since the 1950s. While it is possible that the species has been largely overlooked for the last 60 years, it is more likely that it has declined as naturally open habitat has become closed in by woody plants or was otherwise altered and as disturbed open habitat became dominated by non-native species.
Running buffalo clover (Trifolium stoloniferum) unlike our other native clovers, is perennial and spreads along the ground by means of a running stem or stolon. It has been collected in Arkansas just twice – once in 1881 and once in 1896. It has not been documented in Arkansas since. In fact, it was thought to be extinct altogether until it was rediscovered in West Virginia in 1983. Since then it has been found in several midwestern states.
Bejar clover (Trifolium bejariense) was collected in Arkansas just once, in 1900, by the prolific field botanist Benjamin Franklin Bush. On May 14, Bush collected Bejar clover from “Prairie D’Anne”, a large prairie that once occurred where the town of Prescott now sits in Nevada County.
Update Date:
March, 16 2010