You’ve probably experienced the delightful scents of freshly cut grass and hay. There’s nothing quite like the fragrance of blooming meadows. That scent often comes from a common plant called sweet clover, which releases the fragrant compound coumarin as it wilts.
Sweet clover is well known, though it goes by different names in different regions: yellow sweet clover, rabbit’s foot, sticky clover, and more. Medicinal sweet clover and its close relative, large sweet clover, are biennial legumes with upright, fairly branched stems. The leaves are trifoliate, with the central leaflet on a petiole and the side leaflets nearly sessile. Small yellow flowers form multi-flowered axillary racemes and bloom from June to September.
For the average person, there’s little difference between these species, except that large sweet clover can reach up to five feet tall. It’s relatively rare and mostly found around Vinnytsia, Kharkiv, and Kamianets-Podilskyi.
Medicinal sweet clover grows on slopes, in weedy places, along field edges, and among grain crops. People have valued its forage and honey-producing qualities for centuries. It is also frost-resistant and drought-tolerant.
External uses of sweet clover are more common than internal ones. A well-known green extract plaster made from sweet clover is applied to hard swellings, boils, abscesses, wounds, and cases of osteomyelitis. To make this plaster at home: melt 12 grams of yellow wax with 22 grams of rosin and one tablespoon of animal fat, then add a teaspoon of powdered sweet clover herb. Heat the mixture on low for five minutes, strain it into a cup, and apply it to the affected areas. There are other methods for preparing sweet clover plaster as well.
Steam sweet clover flowers for similar uses, particularly for dental abscesses, middle ear inflammation, mastitis, and other infections. Combine equal parts sweet clover, chamomile flowers, and marshmallow leaves. Steam the mixture in boiling water and apply the poultice to help heal wounds and relieve pain in joints swollen from rheumatism.
For internal use, steep one tablespoon of medicinal sweet clover in a cup of boiling water for 10–15 minutes. People drink this tea for coughs, fevers, migraines, menopause symptoms, insomnia, hypertension, and as a galactagogue for nursing mothers.
Do not exceed the recommended doses for internal use. High amounts of sweet clover can cause nausea, vomiting, headaches, paralysis of smooth muscle, blood in the urine, skin hemorrhages, and a general feeling of malaise.
Make a choleretic tea from equal parts sweet clover, linden flowers, and chamomile: steep two teaspoons of the mixture in a cup of boiling water for 15 minutes.
Sweet clover also serves as a fragrance fixative in perfumery and is used to flavor pipe tobacco and in cheese production.
The medicinal sweet clover herb protects woolen items from moths.
Sweet clover is a versatile herb with many uses and deserves more respect.
