156 FLOWERS OF THE ROADSIDES AND HEDGES 
angular, slightly downy, and branched. The leaflets are in pairs, 
lance-shaped, 3-nerved, finely hairy beneath. The stipules or leaflike 
organs, as wide as the leaves, are broadly lance-shaped and arrow- 
shaped, the petals round. ~The flowers are yellow with darker veins, 
borne on many-flowered flower-stalks, in racemes, drooping, turned all 
one way, the flower-stalks as long as the calyx, which has awl-shaped 
teeth. The pod is stalkless, with a long tapered point, containing 
numerous seeds, and flattened at the sides. The seeds have a small 
hilum, 
The plant grows to a height of 3 ft. It is in flower in June, July, 
August. It is perennial, and propagated by means of the roots. 
When the keel is depressed the tip of the style emerges, and the 
brush of hairs sweeps the pollen out of the apex of the keel, coming in 
contact with the bee's abdomen, and recoils again when the bee goes 
away. The vertical style is incurved, and expands below the oval 
stigma into an elliptic lamina or plate, and is covered with oblique 
hairs, and lies in the apex of the keel. Its hairy surface is turned to 
the bottom, facing the free edges of the tip of the keel. There is a 
pouch between the sides with a fold between to which entrance can be 
had only at the tip. Its anthers lie in the pouch, ripen when it is in 
bud, and pollen falls on the stigma. When the keel is depressed the 
latter emerges and pollen is swept out. Pollen in the pouches is also 
forced up. The wings and keel are closely locked, and it requires 
a good deal of pressure from an insect to exsert the style and stigma. 
In spite of pollen being pushed up close to the stigma, insects probably 
cross-pollinate the flower, rubbing off its own pollen and applying 
fresh. 
The visitors are all bees, Eucera, Bombus, Diphysis, and Megachile. 
The pod, which contains many seeds, contracts when dry, and 
the seeds are thus expelled to a distance by a catapult arrangement. 
Meadow Vetchling is a humus-loving plant, which grows on humus 
soil, or even sand soil where the ground is moist and damp. 
The larve of Cecedomyia lathyri cause the terminal expanded leaves 
to meet and enclose the young leaves, on which they feed. The 
fungi Uromyces pist and U. fabe both grow upon it. The beetles 
Bruchus lott, Phylobius uniformt, Apion subulatum, the Thysanop- 
terous Thrips phalerata, the Lepidoptera Wood White (Leucophasia 
stnapis), Botys fuscalis, Cemiostoma warlesella feed upon it. 
Lathyvus, Yheophrastus, is Greek for a kind of pulse, and the 
specific name refers to the meadow habitat. 
Meadow Vetchling is also called Angleberries, Craw-peas, Fitch, 
