VETCHES SAINTFOIN. 89 



The Tares are pretty slender plants. The Hairy one 

 (Ervum hirsutum), very elegant, with its pale lilac- striped 

 blossoms on long slender footstalks, alone or in pairs. This 

 plant grows abundantly in the South. Fanny has Cornish 

 specimens, and Ned Kentish ones, but I have not found it 

 in the North. 



The Smooth Tare has very insignificant blossoms, three or 

 four in a cluster, but its foliage is very light and elegant, and 

 has a pretty effect climbing among the tall plants in a hedge- 

 bank. It abounds in every part of England. 



The common Bird's-foot (Ornithopus perpusillus, Plate VI., 

 jig. 13), has hardly larger blossoms, but they are tinged with 

 bright rose colour, which makes them more attractive. The 

 plant is compact, the numerous leaflets in the pinnate leaves 

 are oval and pointed, and the seed-vessels are curved, and 

 knotted like a string of beads. I have never found the plant 

 but in the sandy lanes of Cheshire. 



The Horse-shoe Yetch (Hippocrepis comosa), allied to the 

 Bird's-foot by its curved beaded legumes, is a trophy from the 

 downs of Wiltshire. Its clusters of yellow flowers nearly 

 resemble those of the Bird's-foot Lotus, but the more nume- 

 rous leaflets and peculiar seed-pod mark a broad distinction 

 between the plants. Both flower in June. 



On one of the downs bordering upon Salisbury Plain I 

 got the beautiful Saintfoin or French Hay (Hedysarum 

 onobrychis). It is largely cultivated in some districts for 

 cattle, but as Salisbury Plain is given as one of its natural 

 habitats, I hope mine was a wild specimen. It is a beautiful 

 plant, with a dense spike of crimson and white flowers, and 

 bright green pinnate leaves. Ann Pratt speaks of a foreign 

 species of Saintfoin which keeps up an incessant motion 

 (H. gyrans). If the leaflets are held quiet by force, they 

 move afresh upon being released with an increased rapidity, as 

 if to make up for lost time. 



The Everlasting Pea family is the next one in this large 



