74 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



Attempts have been made to discriminate between 

 the cultivated and the wild plants, and the first has 

 retained the name of V. sativa, while the second has been 

 re-named as T. angustifolia. This latter specific name 

 signifies narrow-leaved, while sativa denotes that which is 

 cultivated. The first is said to have broad leaflets, the 

 flowers in pairs, and the pods erect, while the second, the 

 wildling, has narrow leaflets, the flowers solitary, and the 

 pods spreading 1 . On turning to our illustration, made from 

 a plant growing 1 in a large forest and far removed from all 

 suspicion of being under the influence of cultivation, we find 

 that one piece has the flowers singly and the other has them 

 in pairs. According therefore, to the specific differences 

 we have quoted, our plant is two things at once, " which " 

 to quote Euclid Cl is absurd." An attempt has also been 

 made to form a low-spreading variety of the plant into 

 another species, under the title of V. Bofartii, but the test 

 of observation and cultivation has conclusively shown that 

 it runs into the other forms and has no permanence. We 

 may, then, ignoring these differences, speak of the plant as 

 only one. 



The stems of the vetch are sometimes short and spread- 

 ing, sometimes erect. The leaflets vary in number from 

 about six to ten on each leaf, and these leaves terminate in 

 a branched tendril that helps to support the plant, though 

 it has not the climbing habit of many of the wild peas 

 and vetches. The flowers are singly or in pairs in the axils 

 of the leaves, and these are followed by the characteristic 

 pea-like pods, each an inch or so in length, and containing 

 about a dozen small globular seeds. The flowering-season 

 is the spring and early summer. The common English 

 name of the plant varies from vetch to fetch and fitch, 



