Clover or trefoil are common names for plants of the genus Trifolium, consisting of about 300 species of flowering plants in the legume or pea family Fabaceae. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution with highest diversity in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, but many species also occur in South America and Africa, including at high altitudes on mountains in the tropics. They are small annual, biennial, or short-lived perennial herbaceous plants. Clover can be evergreen. The leaves are trifoliate, cinquefoil, or septfoil, with stipules adnate to the leaf-stalk, and heads or dense spikes of small red, purple, white, or yellow flowers; the small, few-seeded pods are enclosed in the calyx. Other closely related genera often called clovers include Melilotus and Medicago.
Alpine tundra is a type of natural region or biome that does not contain trees because it is at high elevation. As the latitude of a location approaches the poles, the threshold elevation for alpine tundra gets lower until it reaches sea level, and alpine tundra merges with polar tundra.
The tree line is the edge of the habitat at which trees are capable of growing. It is found at high elevations and high latitudes. Beyond the tree line, trees cannot tolerate the environmental conditions. The tree line is sometimes distinguished from a lower timberline or forest line, which is the line below which trees form a forest with a closed canopy.
Alpine plants are plants that grow in an alpine climate, which occurs at high elevation and above the tree line. There are many different plant species and taxon that grow as a plant community in these alpine tundra. These include perennial grasses, sedges, forbs, cushion plants, mosses, and lichens. Alpine plants are adapted to the harsh conditions of the alpine environment, which include low temperatures, dryness, ultraviolet radiation, wind, drought, poor nutritional soil, and a short growing season.
Eryngium alpinum is a herbaceous perennial plant in the family Apiaceae.
Trifolium campestre, commonly known as hop trefoil, field clover and low hop clover, is a species of clover native to Europe and western Asia, growing in dry, sandy grassland habitats, fields, woodland margins, roadsides, wastelands and cultivated land. The species name campestre means "of the fields".
Trifolium wormskioldii is a species of clover. Its common names include cows clover, coast clover, sand clover, seaside clover, springbank clover, and Wormskjold's clover.
The Sierra Nevada subalpine zone refers to a biotic zone below treeline in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California, United States. This subalpine zone is positioned between the upper montane zone at its lower limit, and tree line at its upper limit.
Eriogonum alpinum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common name Trinity buckwheat.
The Alpine Botanical Garden “Saussurea” is an alpine botanical garden located at Pavillon du Mont Fréty, first station for the Skyway Monte Bianco cable car, in Courmayeur, Aosta Valley, Italy. It describes itself as Europe's highest botanical garden, at 2173 metres above sea level, and is open daily in the warmer months.
The Ecology of the North Cascades is heavily influenced by the high elevation and rain shadow effects of the mountain range. The North Cascades is a section of the Cascade Range from the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River in Washington, United States, to the confluence of the Thompson and Fraser Rivers in British Columbia, Canada, where the range is officially called the Cascade Mountains but is usually referred to as the Canadian Cascades. The North Cascades Ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion in the Commission for Environmental Cooperation's classification system.
Trifolium andersonii is a species of clover known by the common names fiveleaf clover and Anderson's clover. It is native to the western United States, particularly the Great Basin and adjacent high mountain ranges, including the Sierra Nevada. It was named after Charles Lewis Anderson by Asa Gray.
Hedysarum alpinum is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common name alpine sweetvetch. Called “masu” in Alaska Native Inupiaq language. It has a circumpolar distribution, occurring throughout the northern latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. In North America it is widespread in Canada and the northernmost United States, including Alaska.
Oxytropis sericea is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common names white locoweed, white point-vetch, whitepoint crazyweed, and silky crazyweed. It is native to western North America from Yukon and British Columbia south through the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountains, and the Great Plains.
Parthenium alpinum is a species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common names alpine feverfew and Wyoming feverfew. It is native to Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico in the United States.
Draba exunguiculata is a species of flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae known by the common names clawless draba and Grays Peak draba. It is endemic to Colorado in the United States.
Townsendia rothrockii is a species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common name Rothrock's Townsend daisy. It is endemic to Colorado in the United States, where there are 35 occurrences across thirteen counties. Reports of the plant from New Mexico are false.
Trifolium siskiyouense, the Siskiyou clover, is a clover species endemic to the Klamath Mountains in the western United States.
The flora of the U.S. Sierra Nevada alpine zone is characterized by small, low growing, cushion and mat forming plants that can survive the harsh conditions in the high-altitude alpine zone above the timber line. These flora often occur in alpine fell-fields. The Sierra Nevada alpine zone lacks a dominant plant species that characterizes it, so may or may not be called a vegetation type. But it is found above the subalpine forest, which is the highest in a succession of recognized vegetation types at increasing elevations.
Prasophyllum alpinum, commonly known as the alpine leek orchid, is a species of orchid endemic to Tasmania. It was formerly described as occurring in mainland Australia but has smaller flowers than the species occurring there. It has a single, tube-shaped leaf and up to fourteen green to greenish-brown flowers and grows in subalpine areas.
