66 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
In pastures, heaths, and waste places. Var. « very common, 
and generally distributed; var. ® near the sea; var. y reported 
from the Isle of Wight, Higham and Sandgate, Kent, and Bud- 
leigh Salterton, Devon, but of this I have seen no British 
specimens. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer. 
Taproot very long. Rootstock producing a few subterranean 
stolons and dividing into numerous branches, nearly all of which 
spring from the same point. Stems very numerous, spreading in 
a circle so as to form roundish tufts, ascending from a curved 
prostrate base, 8 to 12 inches long. Leaves shortly stalked, pin- 
nately trifoliate ; leaflets 1 to inch long, wedge-shaped at the base, 
rounded at the apex, entire. Stipules ovate, often acute, as large 
as the leaflets, sub-sessile. Peduncles axillary, 2 to 4 inches long. 
Flower-heads with a 3-foliate bract at the base. Flowers 2 to ? inch 
long, bright yellow, streaked and often tinged with crimson, especially 
when in bud, turning greenish in drying, on short pedicels, spreading 
in a lax umbellate head. Calyx-tube funnel-shaped, 10-nerved at 
the base, but only those which form the midribs of the teeth extend- 
ing to the apex; 2 upper teeth triangular, the rest subulate from 
a triangular base. Standard with an orbicular spreading-reflexed 
lamina; claw dilated and arched a little below its junction with 
the lamina; keel with a long acuminate beak directed towards the 
standard. Pods spreading horizontally, # to 13 inch long, brown 
when ripe, faintly channelled along the upper suture, keeled beneath. 
Seeds numerous, blackish-brown, nearly smooth, sub-orbicular, with 
a small circular hilum. Valves of the pod twisting on their own axis 
and remaining attached at the base. Plant bright-green, slightly 
elaucous, varying from glabrous to hairy. 
Common Birds-foot Trefoil. 
French, Lotier Corniculé. German, Gemeiner Hornklee. 
We must all be able to recall this pretty little plant with its bright yellow flowers, 
as forming part of the soft carpeting of almost every down and meadow-land we have 
trodden. So small does it become in its dwarf state on commons and heaths, that it 
appears almost as if the flowers spring out of the ground without a stalk ; but in more 
favourable positions it attains a considerable amount of dignity, and waves in the wind 
on a stem of its own of some length. It is not to be despised in pasturage for sheep, 
and in hay it is an improvement ; but it has been strongly recommended by Anderson 
both for fodder and hay in his agricultural essays, under the erroneous name of Milk 
Vetch. 
The common vulgar names of this little plant are numerous. Amongst them we 
find it called Butter-jags, Shoes-and-Stockings, Ladies Slipper, Cross-toes, Crow-toes, 
and in Yorkshire Cheesccake-grass. 
