LEGUMINIFERA. 99 
cylindrical, compressed, acuminated at the apex into a rather long 
sharp beak slightly curved downwards, glabrous. Seeds roundish- 
cubical, compressed, granulated with small prominent points ; 
hilum oval, one-twelfth the circumference of the seed. 
On sandy and gravelly pastures and waste places. Rather 
scarce, but generally distributed, except in the extreme North of 
Scotland. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Annual. Spring and Summer. 
Very like small specimens of V. angustifolia, but more branched, 
with the stems prostrate, 2 to 8 inches long, and thickly clothed with 
spreading hairs. Leaflets generally about + inch long, more hairy 
than in the last, and with the apiculus or mucro at the apex shorter. 
Flowers smaller, } to 3 inch long, pale-purple, with the calyx gra- 
dually attenuated to the base, and not swollen on the upper side. 
Pods $ to 1 inch long, glabrous even when young, becoming olive- 
black when ripe, not bossulated by the seeds. ‘The most striking 
difference between this plant and V. angustifolia is in the seeds, 
which are greyish-brown, with minute raised tubercles and a very 
short hilum. Plant greyish-green, more or less hairy. 
Spring Vetch. 
French, Vesce Fausse Gesse. German, Platterbsenartige Wicke. 
Section I1V.—ARACHUS. WMedic. 
Leaves with 1 or 2 pairs (rarely 3 pairs) of leaflets. Peduncles 
axillary, elongated, or short, 1- to 3-flowered. Flowers in short 
racemes or solitary. Style bearded with a tuft of long hairs below 
the stigma on the outer side. Pods shortly stipitate, rather short. 
SPECIES XII—VICIA BITHYNICA. Linn. 
Piate CCCXCVI. 
Lathyrus Bithynicus, Zam. Dic. Vol. IT. p. 706. 
Rootstock none. Stems weak, trailing or climbing. Lower leaves 
with 1, the others with 2 pairs or 3 pairs of elliptical, or linear- 
strapshaped leaflets, rather obtuse or acute and mucronate at the 
apex; common petiole terminating in a branched tendril. Stipules 
large, half-sagittate ; inciso-dentate on both margins. Peduncles 
axillary, shorter than the leaves, or more rarely equalling them, 1- 
or in the latter case 2- or 3-flowered. Pedicels rather longer than 
the calyx. Calyx herbaceous, hairy, the tube more swollen on 
the upper than on the lower side; teeth unequal, triangular-subu- 
