The pea family
Plant family guide
Red Clover (Trifolium pratense) is a useful introduction to Fabaceae. Look closely at one flower head and you will see that it is made from many tiny flowers, each built on the same basic plan as a pea flower.
Fabaceae is also known as the legume family. British members include clovers, vetches, trefoils, broom and gorse, while familiar cultivated members include peas and beans.
Many British members have strongly two-sided flowers with five petals arranged as a large standard, two side wings and a lower keel. In Red Clover these small flowers are packed together into a rounded head.
Leaves are often divided into leaflets. Red Clover has three leaflets, while many vetches have several pairs of leaflets and may end in a tendril. Small structures called stipules are commonly present at the leaf base.
The characteristic fruit is a legume or pod. Many members also form root nodules containing bacteria that fix atmospheric nitrogen, allowing the plants to grow on relatively nutrient-poor soils and enrich the soil around them.
A clover does not immediately resemble a climbing vetch or a yellow-flowered Bird's-foot Trefoil, but their flowers share the same underlying pea-family structure. Looking at the petals, leaves and eventual seed pod is more reliable than judging the plant by overall shape or flower colour.
Fabaceae is a large and varied family, so not every member displays every feature in exactly the same way. Use several characters together when identifying an unfamiliar plant.
Explore the individual flower pages for more photographs and identification details.