The President's Address. By Lord Avebury, 



•jsr, 



contains a layer of woody cells, which however do not pass straight 

 up the pod, but are more or less inclined to the axis. When the 

 pod bursts it does not, as already described in Gardamine, roll up 

 like a watch-spring, but twists itself more or less like a corkscrew 

 (fig. 73). 



In a thicket of Furze in dry bright weather a continuous 

 crackling may be heard. In many genera the pods do not open. 



Fig. 74. — Trifolium subterraneum. Shoot showing huds at end, 

 and three older flower-heads, which are turned down and 

 beginning to bury themselves. 



Some are provided (Medicayo) with hooks and spines and are 

 carried away by animals ; in other species of Medicayo the pods are 

 curled in several close spires, thus forming balls or wheels, which 

 are rolled along the ground, especially in hot dry countries, by the 

 wind. 



Several foreign species of Leguminosa? (Arachis hypoycea, Vicia 

 amphicarpa, Lathyrvs amphicarpa, etc.) have a similar habit. In 

 Astrayalus the dorsal suture is inflected, 

 while in the allied genus Oxytropis the 

 ventral suture is inflected. 



Ornithopus and Hippocrepis have many- 

 seeded pods, and between each two seeds is 

 a constriction which acts like a hook. In 

 Trifolium dubium and T. filiforme the style 

 is persistent and hooked. In T. frayi- 

 ferum and T. rcsupinatum the calyx is 

 inflated, and persistent, thus probably assist- 

 ing in dispersal by wind. T. subterraneum, 

 a low white-flowered species which is be- 

 coming common on golf-courses, buries 

 its seeds, which, as in other similar cases, 

 (figs. 74, 75). 



EosacE/E. — From our present point of view the Eose family 

 may be divided into those with a succulent, and those with a dry 

 fruit. To the former belong Primus, Bubus, Frayaria, Bosa, 

 Cratccyus, and Cotoneaster; to the latter, Spiraea, Dry as, Geum. 

 Potentilla, Alchemilla, Ayrimonia, and Poterium. 



Fig. 75.— Trifolium sub- 

 terraneum. Flower- 

 head, slightly mag- 

 nified. 



are few in number 



