DIADELPHIA-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. Leaflets roundish-obovate, or rhomboid, 

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

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

 axillary stalks, each of numerous yeWowJlowers. Legumes kid- 

 ney-shaped, wiih many branching proijiinent veins, and traces 

 of a spiral structure ; 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 Syjiop- 

 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-fiowered. Leaflets inversely heart- 

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

 gumes spiral, depressed, fringed with long spreading 

 bristles. 



M. maculata. Sibth.232. Willd. Sp. Pl.v. 3. \4\2. Sm.hiRees's 



Cud. n. 22. Camp. ed. 4. 125. Hull 219. 

 M. polvmorpha. Linn. Sp. PL 1 098 ^. Fl. Br. 797 a. Engl. Bot. 



V. 23. /. Hi 1 6. Curt. Lond.fasc. 3. t. 47. Marl. Rust. t. 70. 

 M. arabica. H'illi. (560. Sym. 1 07. 

 M. hispida. Gcertn. v. 2. 349. t. \ :>:)./. 

 Medica arabica. Camer. Hart. 97. t. 27. 

 M. cochleata minor ])olycarpos annua, capsuhl majore alba, folio 



cordalo macula fusca notato. Moris, v. 2. 1 ^)4.sect. 2. f. IT). /'. 1 7. 

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



Bauh. Pin. 329. 

 T. cordatum. Gar. Em. 1 l!)U./. 



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

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



mulos villosis. Plu/i. Almag. 24."). Dill, in Raii Syn. .33 I. 

 M. folliculo spinoso. Lob. fc. v. 2. 37./. 



On a gravelly soil in the southern parts of England. 



Annual. May, June. 



Root fibrous, beset witli little lleshy knobs. Stems j)rostrale, va- 

 rious in length, leafy, angular, branched and sj)reading ; .some- 

 times downy towards the extremity. Ltarcs on \on^ footstalks ; 

 lenjlcts inversely heart-sha|)ed, ecjual, sharply but not deeply 

 toothed, either nearly smooth, or somewhat silkv, e;K'h marked 



