LEGUMINIFER. $3 
upwards of fifty years from the time of sowing. In general, the great enemy to the 
endurance of Saintfoin is the grass, which accumulates and forms a close tuft on the 
surface, and thus chokes up the plant. The Saintfoin seems to have been known to the 
Romans. Pliny recommends the root of a plant supposed to be identical with it as an 
astringent medicine, and Gerarde quotes Dioscorides as an authority for the virtues of 
the Onobrychis. 
Trin III.—VICIE A. 
Stamens diadelphous or sub-monadelphous, the uppermost one 
free from the other 9. Pod continuous (not articulated), 1-celled, 
dehiscent. Cotyledons remaining enclosed in the seed-coat during 
_ germination. Stem herbaceous, generally climbing by means of 
tendrils. Leaves pinnate, almost always without an odd terminal 
leaflet ; the apex of the common petiole and a few of the apical 
lateral pinnee often converted into tendrils, more rarely all reduced 
to tendrils, or the leaf represented only by a foliaceous petiole; 
leaflets entire, without stipels. Flowers axillary, in racemes or 
sub-solitary, wings and keel usually united by the auricles at the 
base of their lamine. 
GENUS XVI—VICIA. Linn. 
Calyx tubular-bellshaped, with 5 teeth, which are nearly equal, 
or the 2 upper ones shorter. Standard oval or obovate, spreading. 
Stamens diadelphous, with the tube obliquely truncate. Style fili- 
form, ascending, without a conspicuous dilatation towards the apex, 
near which it is hairy all round or on the outer side. Pod stalked 
or sessile, exserted, elongated and many-seeded, or short and few- 
seeded, dehiscent. 
Herbs, generally climbing. Leaves mostly with numerous pairs 
of rather small pinne and terminating in a tendril. Stipules gene- 
rally half-arrowshaped. Flowers of various colours, on axillary 
peduncles, which are 1-, 2-, or racemosely many-flowered. 
The name is said to come from vincio, I bind together, because the species have 
tendrils by which they bind other plants. 
Section I—ERVUM. Touwrnef. 
Leaves with 3 or many pairs of leaflets. Peduncles elongated, 
1- to 8-flowered. Flowers racemose, small. Style pubescent all 
round towards the apex, or nearly glabrous. Pods stipitate or sub- 
sessile, short, 2- to 8-seeded. 
