DIADELPKIA— DECANDRIA, Medicago. 319 



Annual. May — August. 



This has the habit of some of the procumbent yellow Trefoils. The 

 root is tapering and fibrous. Stems angular, downy, leafy, va- 

 rious in length, spreading widely on the ground, not branched, 

 except at the bottom. Leciflets roundish-obovate, or rliomboid 

 veiny, smoothish, unspotted, serrated at the anterior margin. 

 Stipulas lanceolate, toothed. Spikes dense, ovate, erect, on long 

 axillary stalks, each of numerous yellow^o?/;er5. Legumes kid- 

 ney-shaped, with many branching prominent veins, and traces 

 of a spiral structure j finally black, sometimes slightly downy. 

 Seed kidney-shaped, solitary. 



One of the most valuable of artificial grasses, affording excellent 

 fodder for sheep. 



(3 has not been well ascertained. The references in Ray's Synop- 

 sis are in several respects erroneous. By the description of 

 "about 10 seed-vessels on each stalk" it appears to be akin to 

 this species, and not to any of the distinctly spiral, many-seeded 

 kinds, which never bear half that number of legumes. 



4. M. maculata. Spotted Medick. 



Stalks two- or three-flowered. Leaflets inversely heart- 

 shaped, spotted. Stipulas dilated, sharply toothed. Le- 

 gumes spiral, depressed, fringed with long spreading 

 bristles. 



M. maculata. Sihlh. 232. WiUd. Sp. PL v. 3. U 1 2. Sm. in Reess 



Cycl. n. 22. Comp. ed. 4. 1 2 J. Hull. 2 1 9. 

 M. polymorpha. Linn. Sp. PL 1098 rj. FL Br. 797 a. Engl. Bot. 



V. 23. <. 16 1 6. Curt. Lond.fasc. 3. t. 47. Mart. Rust. t. 76. 

 M. arabica. With. 660. Si/m. 1 67. 

 M. hispida. G^ertn. v. 2. 349. t. 155./. 

 Medica arabica. Comer. Hort. 97. t.27. 

 M. cochleata minor polycarpos annua, capsula majore alba, folio 



cordato macula fusca notato. Moris, v. 2. 154. sect. 2. t.\5.f. 17. 

 Trifolium cochleatum, folio cordato maculato. Raii Syn. 333. 



Bank. Pin. 329. 

 T. cordatum. Ger. Em. 1 190./. 



Cochleata fructu longius echinato. Riv. Tetrap. Irr.t.SS.f. 12. 

 |3. Medica marina supina nostras, foliis viridibus, ad summos ra- 



mulos villosis. Pluk. Abnag. 245. Dill, in Rail Stjn.^^A. 

 M. foUiculo spinoso. Lob. Ic. v. 2. 37./. 



On a gravelly soil in the southern parts of England. 



Annual. May, June. 



Root fibrous, beset with little fleshy knobs. Stems prostrate, va- 

 rious in length, leafy, angular, branched and spreading; some- 

 times downy towards the extremity. Leaves on long footstalks ; 

 leajlets inversely heart-shaped, equal, sharply, but not deeply 

 toothed, either nearly smooth, or somewhat silky, each marked 



