Observaciones de tchester

This is one of the few native plants that persist in coming up from seedlings in my 99% non-native non-irrigated yard, with generally a few plants germinating in my yard, in totally different locations, each year.

When I saw this plant coming up, I protected it by putting a six foot tall tomato cage over it, which was made out of 6 inch square concrete reinforcing wire.

I noticed today what a beautiful pix that plant made in its gradually elongating pedicels, shown in the first pix.

Note also how wide the leaves are in this good rainfall year, 25" since July 1, 2023. The plants that come up in yard normally have much narrower leaves.

This patch may contain two different species, one of which is T. willdenovii. This observation targets the clover with the wider leaflets. It might also be T. willdenovii, but I'm used to that species having narrower leaflets.

That same clover might be shown in my previous obs from a slightly different location:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/214072765

I thought in the field that this matted clover was T. monanthum, but that species isn't known from San Diego County, and the involucre doesn't look right for that. Just to complicate things, T. willdenovii was growing inside this patch; see my previous observation:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/214072762

Some of the pix in this obs might be of T. willdenovii.

I thought at first that the matted plant had one very hairy leaf, but on looking at my photos again it appears that the entire plant is glabrous, and the hairy leaf seen in one pix is an interloper.

See also the next observation of a nearby patch that looks similar:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/214072767

Bummer I did such a poor job in getting a good pix of the involucre associated with the plants with the wide leaves.

Maybe someone more familiar than I am with Trifolium can tell what this species is.