Indigenous tribes utilized clover and the plant inspired a Sonoma County city’s name

Cloverdale, the most northern incorporated city in Sonoma County, sits in a “dale“ or valley that was “covered with clover” when American settlers arrived in the 1850s. They considered it to be the sign of a fertile landscape.

What the newcomers failed to realize was that the source of that green abundance was the long and careful tending by the Indigenous people living there, people who were being displaced as Cloverdale was being settled.

A clover’s three-part leaves are its most distinguishing feature, reflected in the genus name trifolium. The common names of Sonoma County’s two dozen native clovers suggest their diversity. There’s a Bull clover (trifolium fucatum) and a Cow clover (trifolium wormskioldii). Likewise, Big-headed clover (trifolium macrocephalum) and Small-headed clover (trifolium microcephalum), Tomcat clover (trifolium willdenovii), Bearded clover (trifolium barbigerum), Saline clover (trifolium hydrophilum), Dwarf sack clover (trifolium depauperatum), Creek clover (trifolium obtusiflorum) and Tree clover (trifolium ciliolatum). One common name acknowledges its long-time relationship with humans — Indian clover, or preferably, Rancheria clover.

Before Cloverdale was founded in 1872, the original peoples of Northern California feasted on clover. They welcomed the appearance of the green stems at the end of winter and held special dances to mark the occasion. Even in the early 20th century it was described as “no uncommon sight” to see groups of Indigenous people gathered in fields of clover, eating handfuls where they stood and collecting the crisp stems in bandannas to take home.

After gathering clover, they often set the field on fire and later, broadcast it with seed. It was understood that these practices were required to maintain the quantity and quality of the green plants growing there. Clover is known as a ‘fire follower’ and is one of the first plants to appear on recently burned ground. Like all legumes, it can “fix” nitrogen from the air and store it in root nodules. These nodules of an essential nutrient help restore the soil after a burn. The Indigenous practice is very similar to a farmer planting a cover crop of alfalfa. It has been noted that, when Spanish and American settlers arrived, “their cattle grew fat on Indian-enhanced clover fields, and the ranchers grew rich.” Indeed, the land was so fertile that herds doubled in size within three or four years.

Many clovers, their leaves, seeds and flowers are nutritious, providing protein, beta carotene and vitamins C and D. Some species are toxic, but Indigenous tribes knew which ones to gather.

A traveler in the 1870s described a clover harvest, “You will sometimes see a whole village squatted in the lush clover-meadow, snipping it off by hooking the forefinger around it and making it into little balls” that they popped into their mouths.

As fond as they were of clover, the impulse behind maintaining clover fields went beyond human needs and was intended to benefit elk and deer and other non-human life as well.

Cloverdale may seem like a simple name, but the view from its frame is much bigger than you might expect. It tells us what American settlers saw in a place that was already settled and had been for millennia.