92 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
In woods, thickets, hedges, and borders of fields. Very common, 
and generally distributed. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer 
and Autumn. 
Stems 1} to 8 feet high. Leaflets of the barren shoots gene- 
rally smaller and more roundish-ovate than those of the flowering 
stems, which have the basal leaflet of each leaf 14 to 1 inch long, 
becoming gradually smaller as they approach the apex of the com- 
mon petiole; their shape is usually oval-ovate, but sometimes more 
nearly approaching lanceolate, and the degree of truncation at the 
apex is very variable, the narrower forms of leaflets being sometimes 
almost acute. Peduncles $ to 4 inch long, the flowers commencing 
close to its base, and generally 4 in number, though frequently only 
2. Flowers 4 to ? inch long, pale livid-purple, with the wings more 
inclining to blue, and the keel whitish. Pods 1 to 14 inch long, 
black when ripe, with a very sharp somewhat falcate beak. Seeds 
+ inch across, smooth, dim, dull reddish-brown or olive marbled 
with black. Plant dull-green, with short scattered hairs; the 
edges of the leaves ciliated, and the pedicels and calyces with longer 
woolly hairs. 
Bush Vetch. 
French, Vesce des Haies. German, Zaun Wicke. 
This species shoots earlier in the spring than any other plant eaten by cattle, 
vegetates late in the autumn, and continues green all the winter ; but it is difficult to 
collect the seeds, as the pods burst and scatter them about ; and, moreover, hardly a 
third part of them will vegetate, being made the nidus of an insect. 
SPECIES VIIIL—VICIA LUTEA. Zinn. 
Puate CCCLXXXIX. 
Rootstock none, or short and much branched. Stems weak, 
climbing or procumbent. Leaves with 5 to 7 pairs of elliptical or 
linear-elliptical leaflets, rounded or acute and mucronate at the 
apex; common petiole terminating in a simple or branched tendril 
or occasionally in a subulate point. Stipules half-hastate, small, 
the upper ones ovate-acuminate. Flowers axillary, solitary, rarely 
in pairs, erect or ascending. Pedicels shorter than the calyx-tube. 
Calyx membranous, glabrous; tube gibbous at the base on the 
upper side; teeth unequal, the upper ones deltoid, suddenly con- 
tracted to subulate, about half the length of the tube or little more, 
the lateral pair triangular-subulate, nearly equal to the tube, the 
lowest one similar but slightly exceeding the tube. Standard 
glabrous, three or four times as long as the calyx-tube, with an 
