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Red clover is a temperate plant native from Europe and northern Africa. It lives in calcareous and clay ground.
It’s an herbaceous plant, with perennial leafs and variable pilosity.
It has trifoliate and oval leafs, with short stem and linear margin.
They’re arranged alternately and they contain triangular stipules at its base.
The inflorescences are racemose in capitulum. The calyx contains 5 sepals and the corolla, with 5 petals, is pink.
Its pollination is entomophilic, it means that it’s carried out by insects.
The flower is the main drug. It’s a good expectorant and antispasmodic. Because of its high tannin content, it’s also used to treat periods of diarrhea.
The fruit is a very small and oviform legume (about 2mm).
It’s a good astringent, used for eczema, psoriasis and wounds. Therefore, it is also used for eye diseases such as conjunctivitis.
For being a honey plant, in beekeeping, it’s used by insects to produce more flavoured honey.
It’s a soft diuretic, useful for treating obesity and rheumatic diseases, due to asparagine.
Currently, there’re studies focused on the benefits that bring genisteine, which seems to be useful to prevent and reduce cancerous tumours.