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Leguminosae
Common names
Sweet fenugreek, Cooper clover, channel clover, Darling clover,
Menindee clover, Australian shamrock (Australia).
Description
An annual with prostrate or ascending, usually hairless stems
and leaflets. Leaves trifoliate. Leaflets broadly ovate or obcordate and
more or less denticulate, about 12 mm long, the middle one on a longer
petiolule. Petioles long and slender. Stipules semi-sagitate, deeply toothed.
Four to eight flowers, small, yellow, in sessile axillary clusters or short,
peduncled, umbellate heads. Calyx 5 mm long, the lobes lanceolate-subulate,
rather rigid, fully as long as the tube. Standard longer than the calyx;
wings and keel slightly shorter. Pods linear, curved, almost obtuse, 12
to 20 mm long, about 2 mm wide, opening in two thin reticulate valves,
either flat or undulate.
Distribution
A native Australian species, T. suavissima is found along the
flood plains of the interior rivers, growing prolifically on the rich alluvial
soils after prolonged periods of inundation. It is rarely found on sands.
T. suavissima is particularly prominent in the Channel Country of south-west
Queensland.
General features
A strongly sweet scented herb, T. suavissima is quite palatable
but somewhat ephemeral. It requires general flooding to induce massive
germinations; local flooding will cause little or no germination. It grows
particularly well after late summer-autumn or winter flooding. In the Channel
Country, T. suavissima is considered the fattening feed, and a good clover
year means a heavy supply of fat cattle (Skerman, 1947). It carries nodules
(Bowen, 1956) but is fairly strain specific (Brockwell and Hely, 1966).
T. suavissima has long been recognized as a potentially useful plant
for domestication but to date little effort has been directed toward this
end.
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