You are more likely to walk on than stop and admire this flowering plant. It is an annual or biennial alien weed, native to Central and Eastern Europe. It was brought to the United States as a forage crop.  Like other clovers it is a member of the pea family. The low hop clover can sometimes be hard to distinguish from the hop clover, least hop clover and the black medic.  All have leaves  that are clover-like with three parts. The low hop clover has the unique feature of having the stalk of the terminal leaflet longer than the others. It was also used to improve soil conditions because it is a legume and produces Nitrates from Nitrogen gas in the atmosphere. It quickly escaped cultivation and now can be found in lawns, roadsides, fields and waste areas, throughout North America.

It can grow easily in poor soils and sometimes will form spreading mats that prevent grass from growing. The flowers are lemon yellow and on roundish heads less than 1/2 inch in diameter. There are usually 15-40 individual florets per flower head.  It blooms from April to September.