Trifolium cyathiferum

Bowl clover

Family: Fabaceae · Type: annual · Native

Bowl clover is a California native annual found in northwestern California, the Cascade Range, northern and central Sierra Nevada, Central Valley, and northern eastern Sierra Nevada in spring-moist valleys, chaparral, roadcuts, and forest at elevations below 2,500 meters. Flowering from May to August, this plant produces white to pink-tipped flowers in compact heads 6 to 20 millimeters wide with a distinctive bowl-shaped involucre. Growing with ascending to erect stems that are slightly glabrous, it reaches small to robust sizes depending on local conditions. Its leaves have three leaflets ranging from 1 to 3 centimeters long, each leaflet oblanceolate to obovate in shape with entire or deeply toothed stipules. The flower's calyx measures 7 to 11 millimeters long, with lower lateral lobes nearly equal to the tube and bristle tips generally forked.

Habitat: Generally spring-moist valleys, chaparral, roadcuts, forest

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: < 2500 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, n&ampc SN, GV, n SNE

California counties: Amador, Alpine, Tuolumne, Kern, Mono, Tehama, Plumas, Nevada, Siskiyou, Madera, Trinity, Lassen, Modoc, Mendocino, El Dorado, Butte, Humboldt, Tulare, San Joaquin, Ventura, Sierra, Lake, Glenn, Yuba, Shasta, Placer, Santa Clara, Colusa, Del Norte, Calaveras, Santa Barbara, Sonoma

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.