CLASS DIADELPHIA. 155 



the support and protection of trailing plants. No 

 means of attaining the proposed end are neglected ; 

 a resource ever fruitful, ingenious, and simple, presents 

 itself to our admiration, every instant we reflect and 

 observe the structure of plants. 



But to return to our immediate subject. There is 

 a second genus, that of the Vetch (Viccia) hardly to 

 be distinguished from Lathy rus, and approaching 

 about as near to that genus, as it does to Pisum 

 or the Pea. The following is its generic character. 

 A calyx with the 3 inferior segments straight and 

 longer. The vexillum notched or einarginate. Tho 

 style transversely bearded beneath the stigma. Of 

 this genus, so abundant in Europe, we have very few 

 species, and some of them alike common to both 

 continents ; such is V. cracca, chiefly of the northern 

 states, bearing dense spikes of downwardly inclined, 

 blue flowers of considerable beauty, with numerous 

 pubescent, lanceolate leaflets ; and half-arrow shaped 

 stipules, or foliaceous processes, mostly entire. It is 

 found commonly in meadows and thickets, in flower 

 about midsummer. 



The genus Ervum (Tare and Lentile) is hardly 

 to be known from Viccia, except by its capitate stig- 

 ma, which is in every direction pubescent. For the 

 rest, they have the general look of diminutive vetches. 

 The Lentile (E. lens), used in soups, and other ways 

 in Europe, is one of the few redeeming pledges of 

 utility in this mean looking genus. The lentile is of 

 the form of a flattened spheroid, or lens of a teles- 

 cope, and hence the term now introduced into the arts 

 from the name of the seeds of this plant. 



In the genus Astragalus, which abounds in Siberia 

 and the western territories, the legume is always more 

 or less 2-celled, with the inferior suture reflexed. 

 They are herbaceous, and, in some species, almost 



