88 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
Leaflets + to 1 inch long, varying in breadth. Stipules narrowly 
lanceolate, usually with a single long triangular tooth at the base 
on the side next the stalk. Peduncles 1} to 6 inches long, naked 
at the base, terminating in a dense raceme of unilateral spread- 
ing-reflexed flowers. Calyx-tube scarcely longer than broad, very 
convex on the upper side; upper teeth scarcely one-sixth the length 
of the tube and very broad, the lateral ones triangular, about two- 
thirds the length of the tube, the lowest of all subulate and equal 
to the tube. Flowers 4 inch long, bright-blue; standard dilated 
above the base on each side below the middle, and again contracted 
at rather more than one-third from the apex, where it is emarginate ; 
wings nearly as long as the standard; keel shorter. Style with 
rather long woolly hairs just below the apex. Pods 3 to 1 inch 
long, fawn-coloured when ripe, faintly reticulated, forming an 
obtuse angle upwards with its gynophore, the upper and lower 
margins nearly parallel, obliquely truncate in an ogee curve at the 
apex, where the upper suture is a little deflexed, so that the beak is 
slightly bent down; beak tipped by the style, which is sharply 
bent upwards. Seeds globular, § inch in diameter, dim, black, or 
olive marbled with black. Plant greyish-green, slightly pubescent, 
the leaves sometimes with silky hairs, especially on the under side, 
most apparent when young. 
Tufted Vetch. 
French, Vesce Cracca. German, Gemeine Vogelwicke. 
This beautiful plant grows several feet high, often covering the hedges with its 
slender stems and leaves and long dense clusters of purplish-blue flowers, forming one 
of the greatest ornaments of our country lanes in the middle and latter part of summer. 
Dr. Plot, in his “ Natural History of Staffordshire,” says that this and the Wood Vetch 
advance starved or weak cattle above any other provender. The Vetches yield abundance 
of food ; but the great difficulty in the way of their cultivation as fodder is that, away 
from their native situations, where they hang and support themselves by their spiral 
tendrils on hedges or trees that may be near them, they would doubtless be very trou- 
blesome, and probably choke themselves for want of support. 
SPECIES V.—VICIA OROBUS. D.C. 
Puate CCCLXXXVI. 
Orobus sylvaticus, Zinn. Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 518. 
Vicia cassubica, var. Orobus, Seringe, in D, C. Prod. Vol. II. p. 356. 
Rootstock short, not stoloniferous. Stem stout, erect not climb- 
ing. Leaves with 6 to 14 pairs of oval or oblong-elliptical leaflets, 
rounded or abruptly acuminated and mucronate at the apex; common 
petiole terminating in a short straight subulate point. Stipules 
half-sagittate or half-hastate-sagittate, frequently toothed on the 
outer margin. Peduncles equalling or exceeding the leaves, with 
