298 DIADELPHIA— DECANDRIA. Trifolium. 



bluntish. Legumes pendulous, elliptical, tapering at each end, 

 hairy, less strongly wrinkled than in most exotic species of this 

 section, each barely twice the length of the calyx. 

 The whole plant in drying acquires a scent like new hay, but far 

 stronger. It is sometimes cultivated for fodder, and if cut before 

 flowering, will last several years. The seeds, when mixed with 

 bread corn, give it a nauseous flavour, Melilot is out of use in 

 medicine ; though it served too long to give a green colour, and 

 an odious scent, to a sort of plaster called by its name, of no use 

 whatever. 



** Fl. capitate. Seeds several. 



2. T. o7'nithopodioides. Bird's-foot Trefoil. 



Flowers about three together. Legume prominent, eight- 

 seeded, twice as long as the calyx. Stems reclining. 



T. ornithopodioides. Linn. Sp. PI. 1078. Willd.v.3. 1356. E7igl. 

 Bol. V. 15. t. 1047. Curt. Lond.fasc. 2.t. 53. Hook. Scot.2\B. 

 Fl.Dan.t.368. '■ 



T. siliquosum, loto affine, siliquis ornithopodii. Pluk. Almag. 375 . 

 Phyt.t.68.f.\. 



T, siliquis ornithopodii nostras. Rail Syn. ed. 2. 195. 



Fcenugrsecum humile repens, ornithopodii siliquis brevibus erectis. 

 Dill, in Rail Syn. 33 1 . 



In barren gravelly grassy pastures. 



On several heaths about London. Curtis. Near Tadcaster, and 

 Oxford ; also on sandy banks by the sea, at Tolesbury, Essex. 

 Ray. On Mushold heath, near Norwich. Mr. Pitchford. 



Annual. June, July. 



Root fibrous, with many small fleshy knobs, like those of Vicia la- 

 thyroides. Stems several, spreading flat on the ground, smooth, 

 leafy, mostly simple. Lea/lets inversely heart-shaped, more or 

 less serrated, smooth, their partial stalks all equally short. Sti- 

 pulas ovate with long taper points. Stalks numerous, axillary, 

 solitary, each bearing 2 or 3 long, pale reddish, /towers, the' 

 claws of whose petals are slender, and all distinct. Calyx-teeth 

 also very slender, shorter than the oblong, moderately com- 

 pressed, obtuse, transversely furrowed, slightly hairy, legume, 

 which usually contains 8, Ray says sometimes 10, oval seeds. 



This species has certainly as little the character of Melilotus as of 

 Trigonella, to both which it has been referred. It can scarcely, 

 ■without violence, be retained in TrifoVmm. The claws of the 

 petals are all distinct; the legume separates into 2 valves, without 

 falling, and the seeds are more numerous than in any other of 

 the present genus. Yet nobody has thought fit to make it a 

 distinct one, however plausible might be the reasons for such a 

 measure. 



