Trifolium tomentosumL.

woolly clover

WFO wfo-0000213103 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Trifolium tomentosum, photographed by Alessia Guggisberg
fig. a Alessia Guggisberg, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-31 / obs. 202292648
Trifolium tomentosum, photographed by Rafael Medina
fig. b Rafael Medina, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199401008
Trifolium tomentosum, photographed by carnifex
fig. c carnifex, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200469954
Trifolium tomentosum, photographed by Tim Johnson
fig. d Tim Johnson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197524459
Trifolium tomentosum, photographed by Rafael Medina
fig. e Rafael Medina, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196029576
Trifolium tomentosum, photographed by Ben Costamagna
fig. f Ben Costamagna, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205799795
Trifolium tomentosum, photographed by Eleftherios Katsillis
fig. g Eleftherios Katsillis, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 189441600
Trifolium tomentosum, photographed by Barbara Banfield
fig. h Barbara Banfield, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 192029689

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 31 botanical countries

Regions where Trifolium tomentosum is native: Algeria, Azores, Canary Is., Egypt, Libya, Madeira, Morocco, Sudan-South Sudan, Tunisia, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Iran, Iraq, Lebanon-Syria, Palestine, Sinai, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Baleares, Corse, France, Greece, Italy, Kriti, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaEgyptLibyaMoroccoSudan-South SudanTunisiaCyprusEast Aegean Is.IranIraqLebanon-SyriaPalestineSinaiTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaCorseFranceGreeceItalyKritiNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalSiciliaSpainTürkiye-in-Europe AzoresCanary Is.MadeiraBalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Trifolium tomentosum, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Baleares BAL
Corse COR
France FRA
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Azores AZO
Canary Is. CNY
Egypt EGY
Libya LBY
Madeira MDR
Morocco MOR
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tunisia TUN
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
Palestine PAL
Sinai SIN
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 335 in flower of 654 examined

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Trifolium tomentosum observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 335 of 654 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 4 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 2,022 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 0.2 °C 4.8 °C 10.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.4 °C 28.4 °C 33.3 °C
Annual rainfall 420 mm 645 mm 1,087 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 4 mm 14 mm 121 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 2,022 research-grade observations of Trifolium tomentosum that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 17 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Amoria tomentosa (L.) Roskov
  • Galearia tomentosa (L.) C.Presl
  • Trifolium curvisepalum Täckh.
  • Trifolium pantocsekii Gand.
  • Trifolium rectiusculum Gand.
  • Trifolium resupinatum subsp. tomentosum (L.) Gibelli & Belli
  • Trifolium tomentosum subvar. minus Gibelli & Belli
  • Trifolium tomentosum var. chthonocephalum Bornm.
  • Trifolium tomentosum var. curvisepalum (Täckh.) J.Thiébaut
  • Trifolium tomentosum var. lanatum Zohary
  • Trifolium tomentosum var. leiocalyx Pau
  • Trifolium tomentosum var. minus (Gibelli & Belli) Rouy
  • Trifolium tomentosum var. orientale Bornm.
  • Trifolium tomentosum var. pedunculatum Nábělek
  • Trifolium tomentosum var. philistaeum Zohary
  • Trifolium visianii Gand.
  • Xerosphaera tomentosa (L.) Soják

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.