96 LEGUMINOS^. 



A. montana {Mountain Kidney Vetch) is about 6 inches 

 high, of trailing but compact and somewhat tufted habit, with 

 fine pinnate hairy leaves and dense heads of pink flowers, 

 which appear in May and throughout June and July. It is a 

 very choice little rockery plant. There is a white-flowered 

 variety ver}^ desirable but rare. Native of the south of Europe, 

 chiefly the Alps and Apennines. 



A. vulneraria. — This is our native Woundwort, and is an 

 excellent type of the genus. Like the preceding, it is prostrate 

 in growth and trailing, and is usually densely clothed with soft 

 silky hairs. It is rather variable in the colour of its flowers, 

 varying in different individuals from pale yellow to red ; and 

 occasionally in the same individual these variations are notice- 

 able. There is a permanent variety with creamy-white flowers, 

 and another with dark-red flowers, which are desirable but 

 rare. 



The two forms seen sometimes in Continental catalogues 

 under the names A. Dillenii and A. polyphylla, if not mere 

 varieties, are too much like the last in appearance to merit a 

 place in any but botanical collections ; and it may be thought 

 by many whose acquaintance of viihieraria has been made in 

 its native haunts that the same remark applies to it; but it im- 

 proves much in cultivation, and is wxll worth a place where the 

 collection is extensive. 



Astragalus {Milk- Vetch). — This group of Pea-flowers is a 

 most numerous one, comprising as it does upwards of a hundred 

 species, and its geographical range is ver\^ extensive — almost 

 universal. The species are spread in greater or less abundance 

 over the central and northern parts of Europe and western 

 Asia, and in the rocky hot districts of the region of the Medi- 

 terranean they are abundant, while across the Atlantic they 

 are distributed from the southern slopes of the Andes through- 

 out the countr)^ northwards, and advance far into the arctic 

 regions. The value of the family for the purposes of decora- 

 tion is, considering the large number of species, not high. A 

 very large proportion of the species are alpine plants, pretty in 

 many cases, but generally more curious than pretty, which, 

 under ordinary out-of-doors cultivation, prove in many places 

 unmanageable. A few are remarkable for singularity of appear- 

 ance. Of these the most notable is A. tragacantha., the petioles 

 or leaf-stalks of which are persistent, and adhere to the branches 

 long after the leaves have fallen, and become hard and spine- 

 like ; and as they are numerous, dense, and long, the plant 

 has a rather forbidding, touch-me-not look about it. The 

 more ornamental sorts may be cultivated either on the rock- 



