Clover Alpine

The rhizome is thick creeping. The stems are fluffy 3-10 cm tall. Leaflets obovate, wedge-shaped at the base, finely and sharply dentate. The flowers are large, whitish-red, collected by an umbrella .

It grows in the alpine zone of the mountains, where it lives on ledges and in fissures of rocks, less often in the gravelly tundra and desert-steppe river valleys. Distributed in the European part of the former USSR (central and southern regions), in the mountainous Crimea , in the Caucasus (with the exception of Western Transcaucasia ), in the mountains of Central and Southeast Altai .

It differs from other types of clover in higher protein content in leaves and flowers . The flowers also contain aspartic and glutamic acids, vitamins C, P, B, carotene . In the "Plant Resources of the USSR", in addition, the presence of phenolcarboxylic acids and flavonoids was noted.

Alpine clover is well eaten by cattle, it can also be used for landscaping on lawns.

In folk Altai medicine, Alpine clover grass in the form of decoctions is used for colds, coughs, liver diseases and uterine bleeding.

• Yu. V. Nikiforov. Altai herbs-healers. Gorno-Altaisk: Yuch-Sumer - Belukha, 1992.
• Gubanov I.A. et al. 819. Trifolium alpestre L. - Alpine clover // Illustrated identifier of plants in Central Russia. In 3 t . - M .: T-in scientific. ed. KMK, Institute of Technology. ISS., 2003. - T. 2. Angiosperms (dicotyledonous: dicotyledonous). - S. 462. - ISBN 9-87317-128-9 .

• Agroecological Atlas of Russia and Neighboring Countries: Alpine Clover