LEGUMINIFER. 87 
they spring, frequently 3 or 4 inches long. The flowers are more 
numerous, larger, $ inch long, more deeply tinged with lilac-blue 
at the apex. The pods more shortly stipitate, longer, } to 2 inch 
long. The seeds dark brown or very dark olive mottled with black, 
with the hilum very minute, about once and a half as long as broad. 
The foliage of this species is also rather more glaucous than that 
of the last. 
The differently shaped hilum of the seeds is an important cha- 
racter which invariably accompanies the longer peduncles and pods 
with more numerous seeds. The length of the hilum appears a con- 
stant character in all the Vetches. 
Many-seeded Slender Tare. 
French, Vesce Gréle. German, Schlanke Erve. 
Section II.—CRACCA. Riv. 
Leaves with many pairs of leaflets. Peduncles elongated, many- 
flowered. Flowers racemose, rather large. Style pubescent all round 
towards the apex. Pods stipitate, rather short, many-seeded. 
SPECIES IV—VICIA CRACCA. Zinn. 
Puate CCCLXXXV. 
Cracca major, “ Yranken.” G'r. & Godr. Fl. de Fr. Vol. I. p. 468, 
Rootstock creeping. Stem climbing or trailing. Leaves with 
8 to 12 pairs of oblong-elliptical or oblong-linear leaflets, rounded or 
abruptly acuminated and mucronate at the apex; common petiole 
terminating in a branched tendril. Stipules half-hastate. Pedun- 
cles equalling or exceeding the leaves, with 10 to 30 flowers in a 
compact unilateral raceme. Pedicels shorter than the calyx-tube. 
Calyx slightly pubescent, the tube more convex on the upper than 
on the lower side ; teeth very unequal, the lowest subulate and as 
long as the tube, the 2 upper ones broader than long; standard 
three times as long as the calyx, contracted above the middle. 
Pods spreading, stipitate on a gynophore shorter than the calyx- 
tube, oblong, slightly compressed, acuminated at the apex into 
a short blunt beak, smooth. Seeds globular, with the hilum linear, 
one-third the circumference of the seed. 
In hedges, thickets, borders of fields, and waste places. Very 
common, and generally distributed. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer. 
Rootstock creeping. Stem weak, simple or branched, with 
_ prominent ridges, climbing or trailing, 18 inches to 6 feet long. 
