42 SWISS FLOWERS. 



seed is in a pod. No one can fail to recognise the pea- 

 shaped flowers at a glance ; their various divisions are much 

 more perplexing. O. montana (Fig. 25), often given as the 

 name of the pretty little flower in our sketch, is so like 

 O. cyanea that it may be mistaken for it. The latter is more 

 silvery. O. montana rises three or four inches high, with 

 rather straggling leaves and stalks, the stalks sometimes 

 having a few leaves. The flowers are in a roundish head, 

 something like our Bird's-Foot Trefoil, or Ladies' Fingers, 

 onlyj instead of being yellow, they are of a variegated 

 purplish blue, mixed with white. The leaves grow in pretty 

 elegant pairs, to the number of six or eight, with a terminal 

 leaflet, and are rather hairy. Alpine mountain-pastures : 

 Zermatt, Great St. Bernard, St. Nicholas. 



26. Trifolium. 



(PLATE XVI.) 



We know many of the Clovers more by their round 

 heads of flowers, than by their pea-shaped form ; but, 

 when closely examined, each of these little blossoms will 

 be found to be papilionaceous, though often the upper 

 petal is more like a tube than widely expanded. Trifolium 

 Alpinum (Fig. 26) is about four or five inches high, with 

 large heads of dullish-red flowers, an inch or two across. 



