PEA AND BEAN TRIBE 203 



Plant perennial. This handsome flower is found in some woods in Cam- 

 bridgeshire, CiimV)erland, Worcestershire, and other counties, but it is always 

 the outcast of a garden. It is a well-known and showy cMmber, often in its 

 cultivated state adorning the cottage porch or summer arbour, making it gay 

 with its profusion of bright green foliage and its purple and pink flowers. 

 The leaves are so abundant, and the seeds so numerous, that some agricul- 

 turists have thought that the plant would be worth cultivation for fodder. 

 The Sweet-peas, Tangier Peas, and some other lovely flowers of the garden- 

 bed, are species of Lathyrus. In Switzerland large fields are sown with 

 another species, the Chickling Vetch {Lathyrus sativus), which is cultivated 

 as food for horses ; and on several parts of the Continent a white and well- 

 flavoured bread is made from the seeds. In the seventeenth century, how- 

 ever, when this bread came into general use, very sad eff'ects followed upon 

 eating it as daily food. A great rigidity of the limbs ensued, causing a loss 

 of muscular power, beyond the reach of cure. No pain served as a pre- 

 monitory symptom, the sufferer experienced little more than a slight diminu- 

 tion of strength, when he suddenly found his limbs rigid, and movement 

 impossible. Several of the lower animals were found, when fed on this diet, 

 to lose all use of the limbs, and even pigeons which ate the seeds shortly 

 became unable to walk, though geese could eat them with impunity. George, 

 Duke of Wirtemberg, published, in 1671, an edict prohibiting the use of the 

 bread in his dominions, but the peasantry still continued to eat it, till his 

 successor, Leopold, by two edicts in 1705 and 1714, abolished its use. A 

 variety of this Lathyrus sativus, called the Poisonous Pea of Barbary, is highly 

 deleterious, and the Government of Florence forbade the use of the seeds in 

 bread, in 1786 ; but Fabroni says, they are still used by the poor, boiled and 

 mixed with wheaten flour, and that, thus prepared, they do not seem to leave 

 any bad eff'ects. The roots of Lathyrus tuberosus, a plant growing sometimes 

 in Essex cornfields, are tuberous, and are called Earth-nuts. This species is 

 cultivated in Holland, and in some districts on the borders of the Rhine, for 

 these tubers. 



4. Seaside Everlasting Pea (L. maritimus). — Flower-stalks many- 

 flowered, shorter than the leaves ; leaves of from 3 to 8 pairs of oval leaflets ; 

 stipules as large as the leaflets, halberd-shaped, with their angles acute ; stem 

 angular, but not winged. Plant perennial. On some of our pebbly beaches 

 this pretty Pea may be found, during July and August, straggling over the 

 stones with its short stems adorned with their numerous flowers. These are 

 large and handsome, and are of a purplish or crimson hue, varied with blue. 

 This Pea is very rare. It occurs more frequently on the eastern coast than 

 in any other part of England, and the pebbly beaches of Lincolnshire and 

 Suffolk are occasionally made gay with it. 



There is little reason to doubt that this is a truly wild flower ; but the 

 legend is still told in Suff'olk, that it sprang up on the coast there for the first 

 time in a season when food was greatly needed. The wonderful appearance of 

 this Pea is mentioned both by Stowe and Camden, who believed it to have 

 grown from seeds Ijorne out of some foundered bark by the rushing waA-es. 

 Doubtless, many of the plants on our shores have such an origin, and would 

 as well deserve as does the Guernsey Lily to be called the Flower of the 



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