Yellow and White Sweet Clover
Melilotus officinalis

Description:   Sweet Clove will grow up to 5 feet high and flowers May to October.  Yellow or white flowers grows in end clusters to 6".  It has a three-leave configuration with axil (stem). Leaflets are pinnately trifoliolate and toothed, sweet smelling when crushed, or freshly mowed.

Location:   Found in roadsides, railway right of ways, waste places and pastures, most common in the Eastern United States.

Traditional Use: The extract from the fresh and dried leaves and flowers was formulated into liniments and  poultices. Coumarin, an anticoagulant, seems to be the major active compound.  The Eclectic Herbalists and Naturopathic practitioners used the herb to treat pain associated with lack of circulation in the extremities. Also used for headaches.  Said to relieve menstrual and intestinal colic and was claimed beneficial in treating rheumatism.  

Modern Uses: Yellow clover may be appropriate  therapy for varicose veins, lymphoedema (burns), cancer, elephantiasis, cancer, hemorroids, and venous insufficiency. It reduces inflammation and swellings by breaking down accumulated protein, plus by increasing venous return and lymph flow. post-traumatic inflammation.  It is anti-edematous, anti-inflammatory, possibly anti-tumor, and may be immune enhancing.  

Notes:  The white flower sweet red sweet clover is a color variation but the same species as Yellow Sweet Clover.

Veterinarian/Wildlife: Sweet Clover Disease, toxic to livestock, is contracted when grazing animals eat moldy Melilotis in hay.  oumarin is transformed to dicoumarol (anticoagulant) in moldy Melilotus hay and is toxic to livestock.  When damp and moldy coumarin in the plant forms the anticoagulant dicoumarol.. 

Nature: neutral
Traditional Uses: cleanses lungs, resolves phlegm, controls bleeding, removes toxin
Applications: headache, ocular irritation, cough, profuse phlegm, malaria,