208 LEGUMINOS^— PEA AND BEAN TRIBE 



of England," remarks of it — " Sainte-foin, or Holy Hay : Superstition may 

 seem in the name, but I assure you there is nothing but good husbandry in 

 the sowing thereof. Some call it the small clover-grass, and it profiteth best 

 in the worst ground. It was first fetcht out of France from about Paris, 

 and since is sown in divers places in England, but especially in Cobham Park, 

 in the county of Kent, where it thrive th extraordinary well on dry chalky 

 banks, where nothing will grow. It will last seven years, by which time the 

 native grasse of England will prevail over this forraigner, if it be not sown 

 again." This old writer was pretty nearly correct in this latter statement. 

 The Saintfoin comes to perfection in about three years, and begins to decline 

 about the seventh or eighth year on gravelly soils, though it will last two 

 or three years longer on chalk. In some rare cases, however, there are fields 

 of Saintfoin, which, having been long neglected, were mostly, as Fuller 

 says, "prevailed over by the native grass," in which single plants have yet 

 remained fifty years after sowing. It has been cultivated upwards of a 

 century on the Cotswold Hills, and on these soils roots of the Saintfoin have 

 been traced down into stone quarries from ten to twenty feet in length. 

 Von Thaers has found them in Germany attaining the length of sixteen feet. 



The Saintfoin is called Le Sanfoin and L'EsjMvget by the French, Esparette 

 by the Germans, and Hannekammetjes by the Dutch. It was formerly 

 included in the genus Hedysarum, the plants of which it much resembles. 

 The French honeysuckle of our gardens, and the False Saintfoin of southern 

 Europe, are well-known allies of our wild flower. The former, Hedysarum 

 coronarium, which looks like a very large Saintfoin, grows wild in great 

 luxuriance in Calabria, where it attains the height of nearly four feet, and 

 affords abundance of food to horses. Osbeck says, that he saw large bundles 

 of it brought to Cadiz as fodder for cattle. Another species is extremely 

 useful for fixing the loose sands of some countries of the south of Europe ; 

 and various exotic kinds are prized in those lands as affording valuable tonic 

 medicines. The roots of one species, the Senna-like Saintfoin (H. sennoides), 

 are stimulating, and are sold in the bazaars of India, and administered by 

 native practitioners in cases of fever. Our herbalists call our Saintfoin Cock's 

 Head, Red Pitching, and Medick Fetch. One of them says of it, " It hath 

 power to rarify and digest, and therefore the green leaves, bruised and laid 

 as a plaister, disperse swellings ;" though we might add, as Gerarde did to 

 the account given of the virtues of some other plant, " Whereof they had 

 those notions, I know not ; it may be of some doctor who never went to 

 school." 



The celebrated Churra Borrum of the Hindoos, the Moving Saintfoin 

 {Hedysarum gyrans), is well known as the most singular of all sensitive plants. 

 Its movements are not occasioned by any touch or vibration of the air; 

 no sooner have the young seedlings acquired their triple leaves than this 

 mysterious movement commences, never to cease wholly till life is extinct. 

 No apparent influence directs the motion ; one leaflet moves while all others 

 are quiescent ; or a few leaflets only are in agitation ; or all are in movement 

 at once. Grasp the leaflets in your hand, and they are compelled to rest ; 

 but release them, and they are restless as the sea- wave, or fluttering wing 

 of the bird. Heat quickens the movements, and cold retards them ; but they 



