Japanese clover is a small Asian annual in the pea family that has spread across much of the eastern United States since the mid-1800s. You'll find it in lawns, pastures, and roadsides, where it bears tiny pink to purple flowers from midsummer into fall. It's also called common lespedeza.
Appearance
- Growth form
- An annual that sprawls flat or grows upright, mostly about 4–16 in (10–40 cm) tall, with sprawling stems that can reach about 20 in (50 cm). The wiry stems carry stiff hairs that point back toward the base.
- Leaves
- Leaves have three small oval leaflets, each about 0.2–0.8 in (5–20 mm) long, with fine side veins running in straight parallel lines to the edge.
- Flowers
- Tiny pea-shaped flowers, about 0.2 in (4.5–6 mm) long, in pink, purple, or white, sit singly or in small clusters where the leaves join the stem. The plant also makes even smaller flowers that never open and pollinate themselves.
- Flowering time
- July to October (Missouri)
- Fruit
- A small flat pod, about 0.1 in (2.5–4 mm) long, holding a single seed. The leftover covers more than half of the pod.
Look-alikes
Korean cloverKummerowia stipulacea
Check the stem hairs: on Japanese clover they point down toward the base, while on Korean clover they point up toward the tip. Korean clover also has an obvious fringe of hairs along the leaflet edges.
Why they get mixed upThey're the only two species in the genus and look nearly the same.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- Lawns
- Pastures
- Roadsides
- Fields
- Forest openings
- Range
- Native to eastern Asia, including China, Korea, and Japan. In the US it's common across the eastern half of the country, from New York south to Florida and west as far as New Mexico.
- Preferred conditions
- Grows in sunny, open places and does well on disturbed, sandy soil. It turns up in glades, rocky prairies, railroads, and other disturbed ground.
- Flowering
Flowers Jul–Oct
Flowers Jul–Oct
Growing it
- Propagation
- Reseeds itself freely from seed.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- NENot EvaluatedNot yet assessed
- Status
- Not native to the US, and it's considered invasive in some places.
Culture and stories
- Culture and stories
- It was first noticed in the US in the 1840s, probably arriving by accident as a seed contaminant, and by the end of the Civil War it was reported all across the South.
- Farmers once planted it widely as forage for horses and cattle, and it has been used to cover old coal-mine land and control erosion. Like other , it adds nitrogen to the soil.
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