206 HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 



the produce is generally more succulent thnn in dry pastures, 

 this plant cannot with safety be recommended, at least in 

 any considerable quantity. It is more partial to dry soils 

 than the next species, lotus major; it attains to a consi- 

 derable height when growing among shrubs, and seems to 

 lose its prostrate or trailing habit of growth entirely when 

 in such situations. 



It comes into flower about the second week of June, and 

 the seed is ripe about the end of July, and successively till 

 the end of autumn. 



LOTUS major. Greater Bird's-foot Trefoil. 



Specific character : Heads depressed , many-flowered ; 

 stems erect, hollow ; legumes spreading, cylindrical ; 

 claw of the keel linear, shorter, filaments not dilated. 



Obs. — Stems from one to two and a half feet high, 

 according as it is more or less drawn up by bushes, or 

 exposed without shade, more or less fringed with long 

 loosely-spreading hairs ; leaves also more or less fringed 

 with similar hairs ; flower-heads when young very 

 hairy, flowers from six to twelve in each head, of a duller 

 orange than the preceding species ; pod slender, and 

 exactly cylindrical. — I have raised this plant from 

 seed on two different soils, a siliceous sandy soil and a 

 clayey loam, and the above characters remain perma- 

 nent in both instances : it is surprising that two plants 

 so distinct in habits should have so long been consi- 

 dered varieties only. 



Native of Britain. Root perennial, creeping. 



Experiments. — At the time of flowering, the produce from 

 a clayey loam is 21,780 lbs. per acre. 



The weight of green food, or hay, is triple that of the 

 foregoing species, and its nutritive powers are very little 

 inferior, being only as 9 to 8. These two species of bird's- 

 foot trefoil may be compared to each other with respect to 

 habits, in the same manner as the white clover and perennial 

 red clover ; and were the latter unknown, there appear to 



