PEA FAMILY 



and hold, that the sHghtest touch dislodges them 

 and one finds one's garments covered with a coat of 

 mail, green or brown, in return for having ventured 

 into apparently innocent places. It is by way of the 

 pods that madness lies. 



Thoreau writes of them: "Though you were running 

 for your Hfe, they would have time to catch and cling 

 to your clothes. These almost invisible nets, as it 

 were, are spread for us, and whole coveys of Desmodium 

 and Bidens seeds steal transportation from us. I have 

 found myself often covered, as it were, with an im- 

 bricated coat of the Brown Desmodium seeds or a 

 bristling chevaux-de-frise of Beggar-Ticks, and had to 

 spend a quarter of an hour or more picking them off 

 in some convenient spot, and so they get just what 

 they wanted — deposited in another place." 



Blooming at the same time and often alongside is 

 Desmodium nudiflorum, the Naked-stemmed Tick- 

 Trefoil which carries on its flowering stem a single 

 trifoliate leaf at the base. This flowering stem is 

 strung with rose-pink, Pea-hke flowers in pairs, one 

 opening quite a little earlier than the other and each 

 producing one of the detestable pods of the clan. 



BUSH-CLOVER 



Lespedeza violdcea 



Named for Lespedez, governor of Florida, patron of 

 Michaux. 



Perennial. A native herb, often woody; in dry soil, 

 pastures and thin meadows. New England to Minne- 

 sota, south to Florida and Kansas. July-September. 



96 



