Individual flowers, pink-lavender to purple, formed along a keel, like those of the cultivated clovers, about ½ inch long and rather slender, grow singly or in twos or threes on short pedicels rising directly from the root crown. The plant is a dense mat, often a foot or more across, covered with small 3-foliate leaves. Grows on rocky flats or slopes in alpine zone. Blooms June-July.

For many, acquainted only with the cultivated clovers of lawn and meadow, it is a pleasure to know that the high pastures grazed by deer and elk have clovers as well. At least three species are familiar to observing travelers along Trail Ridge, or up Mt. Evans, or along any road that crosses the enchanted land where trees stop and dwarfed plant life takes over. The deer clover pictured here likes rocky places. Its flowers are packed close together, but not clustered in heads as are those of its alpine neighbor, Trifolium dasyphyllum, which closely resembles the white clover of our lawns, though with touches on its petals of red-brown. In the high places, extending down through the sub-alpine zone there is also a bright red clover, Trifolium parryi, smaller but otherwise much like the cultivated red clover.