134 MB. HOGG ON FOUR VARIETIES 



cases, and other fancy articles of varied and beautiful design, 

 made with thin slices of the Arhutus-wood, veneered with skill. 

 Numbers of the poorer class thereby gain a very good livelihood. 



The third plant is perhaps only a remarkably large and lux- 

 uriant variety of Astragalus hypoglottis ; or, indeed, it may ulti- 

 mately be proved from its mature pods to be a distinct and foreign 

 species. I first discovered three or four individuals of it in the 

 summer of 1856, which were growing on the side of the West 

 Hartlepool railway, near the Greatham viaduct in the county of 

 Durham ; but the dried specimens wliich I now exhibit, were 

 gathered in July last, from one of the plants seen by me last 

 year. For the better comparison of the ordinary form of A. hy- 

 poglottis with this abnormal one, I have attached also a dried and 

 very old specimen of the true " Purple Mountain Milk-Yetch," 

 which was gathered near the Queen's Ferry, Edinburgh. 



Smith, in his ' English Flora,' vol. iii. p. 295, gives the entire 

 length of the stem of the normal plant in Britain, as varying from 

 " 2-5 inches," and its leaflets are usually " small and ovate " ; or 

 rather, as Sir W. Hooker states, " elliptico-ovate." Withering 

 also, in his 4th edition, vol. iii. p. 269, describes the number of 

 leaflets in each leaf as from " six to twelve pairs with an odd one," 

 terminating the leaf; and Mr. Babington says the leaflets ai*e 

 " in eight to ten pairs." Now, in my recent and larger specimens, 

 the stems varied from about 12 to 14 inches in length, the entire 

 stem being stronger but more straggling ; the leaves containing 

 fourteen or sixteen pairs of leaflets and a terminal one : the leaflets 

 themselves are less ovate, and more elongated or lanceolate. The 

 flowering stems are nearly double the length of those of the or- 

 dinary plant ; the flowers are more numerous, and the flower-heads 

 are larger and stouter. Indeed, the whole plant is altogether 

 more robust and upright ; and if a variety of A. hypoglottis, it 

 presents a very luxuriant condition. At first I was inclined to 

 think that it might be a foreign species (and from further exami- 

 nation of it I retain the same inclination) introduced with ballast, 

 as it was found on the side of a railway only a few miles distant 

 from a considerable seaport. West Hartlepool ; and the ballast or 

 ground in which it was growing was a mixture of sand and sea- 

 shells much broken. But had it been growing in a very rich 

 soil, this might have accounted for its remarkable luxuriance of 

 size, and might have induced one to suggest that it might be culti- 

 vated, like tares or saintfoin, as food for cattle, with every prospect 

 of success. 



