DIADELPHIA— DECANDRIA. Trifolium. 3J1 



T. filiforme. Linn. Sp. PL 1088. TVilld. v. 3. \384. Fl. Br. \404 ; 



also 792, excluding the variety. Comp.ed. 4. 124. Engl. Bot. 



V. 18. t, 1257. Relh. 290. Hook. Scot. 220. 

 T. lupulinum minimum. Dill, in Raii Syn. 33] . t. 14. f. 4. 

 T. luteum lupulinum minimum. Moris, v. 2. 142 ; not the figure. 



In sandy or gravelly grassy pastures^ whether dry or moist. 



Annual. June, July. 



Root tapering, small, the fibres bearing several fleshy tubercles. 

 Whole herb usually much smaller than the foregoing, quite 

 smooth, except a slight hairiness on thejlower-stalks, and some- 

 times on the upper part of the steins, which latter are quite 

 prostrate, very slender, 3 or 4 inches long, sometimes 10 

 or 12, much branched at the bottom. Leaflets small, inversely 

 heart-shaped, toothed. Common footstalks very short, scarcely 

 a quarter so long as the leaflets ; partial ones still shorter, all 

 nearly equal and uniform, that of the middle leaflet not being, 

 as in the last species, an apparent continuation or elongation 

 of the common stalk. Stipulas small, ovate, membranous, some- 

 what fringed. Fl. very small, yellow, in real clusters, each 

 having a capillary partial stalk, full as long as the calyx-tube ; 

 they are usually from 3 to o in each cluster j sometimes only 2, 

 or even solitary ; sometimes 7 or 8 3 leaning all one way, 

 finally pendulous. Teeth of the calyx rather less unequal than 

 in T. minus, quite smooth, for I believe the hairs represented in 

 Engl. Bot. are an error. Legume obovate, scarcely covered 

 by the withered corolla, which turns pale in that state, and the 

 standard is perfectly even. Seed large, almost always solitary, 

 1 have very rarely seen 2. 



This species is clearly and most scientifically distinguished from 

 the last by its i;?^ore5cewce, which Linnaeus, in P/ii/. Bot. sect. 279, 

 prefers to every other part for sound specific diff"erences. He 

 has adverted to the " manifest and distinct" partial flower-stalks 

 of T. filiforme in his Sp. PL, which in fact render the inflores- 

 cence of this plant a racemus, not, as in the foregoing, a spica or 

 capilulum. Haller in his Iter Ilelvcticum, sect. 13, highly extols 

 Dillenius for ascertaining these two species ; and yet in his 

 Ilistoria, under n. 3(14, he records thatDillenius found the seeds 

 of T.filif()rmt:\m)ducQd n. 3G3,ouTprocumbens. This proves too 

 mucii, and oversets all the authority of tlie relator. Vet the 

 great Oxford Pnjfessor is the first who clearly discriminated tiie 

 three species which form our .')th section, and his figures of the 

 two latter preclude all doubt as to what he meant. Linnseus 

 seems to liave considered our viitius as a variety ol' procumbms ; 

 his |)u))il Khriiart referred it to filiforme. I have, too heedlessly, 

 been led into the latter error in the second volume of FL lir. ; 

 but the accurate in(iuiries of the Hev. Dr. Heeke, now Dean ot 

 Hrfstol, enabled me to correct my mistake, in the tiiird volume, 

 riiis gentleman favoured me with specimens of the plants in 



