THE WEEDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 53 



Hex ham Scent (Melilotus par vi ft or a Desf.). 

 (LEGUXVIINOS,E-PAPILIONACE;E: Pea Family.) 



Popular Description. A weak but upright herb, with a strong odour, from 

 which it derives its common name. It has the three leaflets of a " trefoil," 

 with narrow teeth on their margins. The flowers are in open spikes, which 

 rise from the fork made by the leaf-stalk and the stem. The seed remains in 

 the pod, and falls with it. 



It is a native of the Mediterranean region and India. ' 



Botanical Description. 



A slender ascending scented herb. Leaves pinnately three-foliolate, witb 

 narrow-toothed leaflets. Flowers small, yellow, in slender axillary spike-like 

 racemes. Pod oval, wrinkled, indehiscent, one-seeded. 



.Experience in other States. The experience of dairy farmers at King 

 Island, off the coast of Tasmania, will transpire from what will be shown 

 later. 



Black, under the name M. indica AIL, speaks of it as found in cultivated 

 land or sandy soil near the sea in South Australia, and he says that it is 

 known as California Lucerne in the south-east of South Australia. This 

 may be, as will be understood from what will follow, a misleading name. In 

 California it is known as Bitter Melilot, and in the Bulletin of the Cali- 

 fornia Experiment Station, No. 124, occur these words: 



Prof. A. J. McClatchie, of the University of Arizona Experiment Station, at 

 Tucson, writes under date of 27th April, to the effect that in Arizona this 

 plant is found to be the most successful green manure crop that can be raised 

 in their orchards. He continues : " the conditions are somewhat different with 

 us than with you. Ordinarily we have plenty of irrigating water to grow any- 

 thing we choose, until as late as April at least. Before that time the Melilotus 

 makes a fine growth. We began ploughing ours under about the first of April, 

 the yield being 15 to 16 tons of green matter per acre, or 2 to 3 tons of dry 

 matter. Nothing else that we have tried will approach this in yield during 

 the winter." 



" Reference to the table sbows that this yield is less than that of either the 

 Pink or the Large Blue Lupin, and only just above tbat of the Succulent 

 Lupin. At the same time the leaves of the Bitter Melilot are small and 

 sparse, and the stalk is very woody; by far the largest part of the weight, 

 .therefore, is probably fibrous matter, unfitted for rapid decomposition, and 

 of a nature to keep the soil perhaps too loose and dry both disadvantageous 

 features. On the other hand, the hold which this plant has acquired upon 

 California as a weed, and readiness with which it can be obtained and with 

 which it will grow, the small size of its seeds, and the fact that it will flourish 

 and develop a fine mass of tubercles in alkali soils, are points which make it 

 worthy of further consideration. As in California it makes but little growth 

 in winter it could not replace the lupins for orchards and vineyards." 



Ewart* has the following remarks on Melilot : 



Melilotus. Melilot. All the species contain Cumarin, a volatile odoriferous 

 principle, which in excess produces a disinclination to locomotion, paralysis, 

 and ultimately fatal symptoms. No harm is to be apprehended if the amount 

 present does not exceed 10 per cent, of the herbage, and the aroma of Cumarin, 

 which is also present in the grass (AntTioxanthum odoratum), renders stale 

 hay more palatable. The seed of some species may last for fifty years. 



* Weeds, Poison Plants, and Naturalised Aliens of Victoria, p. 23. 



