OCCURUENCE OF MKDICAGO LAPPACEA IN BEDFORDSHIKE. 23 



much more of the next ; the spines are radiant, standing out hori- 

 zontally, and are not set on at an oblique angle ; the seeds also are said 

 to be rather oblong than reniform ; the whole plant is coarser and 

 ranker, and of a more succulent leafy habit. The blackness of the 

 spines (hence compared to eye-lashes), so much insisted upon by the 

 earlier writers, is by no means conspicuous in the Bedfordshire plant, 

 or, indeed, usually in foreign specimens. 



31. lappacea was first separated by Desrousseaux in Lamarck's 

 " Encyclop^die Methodique," t., iii., p. 637, but was well-known to 

 the older botanists. The pods have been twice figured, perhaps not 

 very characteristically, by Morison (Hist. Oxon., ii., p. 154, n. 16; 

 sect, ii., tab. 15, fig, 11, Medica cochleata 'syoXvuapTno; capsula 

 apinosa minore, perennis, ciliaris, seu capsulis ciliaribm nigris ; and 

 no. 18, sect, ii., tab. 15, fig. 13, Medica cochleata minor ■nroXvuocpxtro; 

 amiua capsula nigra hispidiore). It is the Medicago p>olymorpha ciliaris 

 (not, however, M. ciliaris of Willdenow and De Candolle) and M.p. 

 nigra of Linnaeus, Sp. PI., no. 9. Our plant belongs to the typical 

 variety, a. macroacantha of Lowe (Fl. Mad. i., 158), M. ciliaris, 

 Brotero, ii., 114, 3f. muricata, Buch, 198, 419 (not of others), M. 

 nigra (W.), DC, ii., 178., M. pentacycla, DC, and M. Histrix, 

 Tenore, M. lappacea (3. pentacycla, DC, ii., 177, and Gren. & 

 Godr., Fl. Fr., i., 390, M. pentacycla, Seubert, Fl. Azor., 48, no. 368, 

 and M. denticulata 3. macroacantha of "Webb and Berthelot, ii., 64. 

 As in perhaps all the other species of the section there is a short- 

 spined form, which however passes into the type. It is then If. 

 Terehellum of Willdenow, ii., 176, and Koch, 181, and M. sardoa of 

 Moris. Boissier in his " Flora Orientalis," vol. ii., p. 103, places both 

 M. lappacea and pentacycla as varieties under M. denticulata ; the 

 former is perhaps the variety with 2-4 whorls to the fruit, M. lap- 

 pacea a. tricycla of Grenier and Godron. There is a full desci'iption 

 of the usual form in the Ilev. R. T. Lowe's unfinished " Manual Flora 

 of Madeira." 



M, lappacea has been so frequently confused with M. denticulata 

 and other related species, that it is probably more common than has 

 been supposed. It is a plant of waste ground, roadsides, and 

 occasionally cultivated fields — perhaps most at home in the Mediter- 

 ranean region, "Western Asia (where according to Boissier it is more 

 abundant than its allies), North Africa, and the Atlantic Islands ; but 

 it has spread itself widely through the warmer parts of the northern 

 hemisphere. There are specimens in the Herbarium of the British 

 Museum from the South of France ; Eastern Pyrenees, collected by 

 Petit; Toulon, Bourgeau ; Hyeres, J. Woods ; from the neighbour- 

 hood of Genoa, Eostan ; from Madeira, Banks and Solander, 1768, 

 and Masson, 1777 ; and from the Canaries, Bourgeau, &e. There are 

 others from the Happy Valley, Hongkong from riceflelds, collected 

 by J. Lament and labelled Af. lupulina ; from New California, Douglas, 

 originally distributed as M. maculata ; and fi'om Orizaba, Mexico, 

 collected by Botteri. 



It is perhaps worth mentioning that M. maculata, which seems to 

 have dropped out of notice as a Bedfordshire plant, was figured 

 originally in " English Botany," t. 1616 (as M. pohjmorpha), from a 

 Bedford specimen sent by the Rev. Mr. Hemsted. 



