270 Blue to Purple Flowers 



This plant is frequently found growing flat upon the 

 ground. 



PURPLE HEDYSARUM 



Hedysarum boreale. Pea Family 



Stems: erect, glabrous, generally simple. Leaves: odd-pinnate, short- 

 petioled ; leaflets oblong, obtuse, and often mucronate at the apex. 

 Flowers: in long loose racemes, deflexed. 



This is a tall handsome plant very common among the 

 mountains. The leaves are short-stalked and have eleven 

 to twenty-one oblong leaflets which are rounded at the base. 

 The stiff erect racemes of deflexed violet-purple flowers are 

 longer than the leaves and the pods are drooping and have 

 three to five oval strongly reticulated joints. 



The white or cream-coloured species, Hedysarum sul- 

 phurum, is described in the White to Green Section. 



COW VETCH 



Vicia Cracca. Pea Family 



Stems: tufted, slender, weak, climbing or trailing. Leaves: pinnate, 

 tendril-bearing, nearly sessile; leaflets eighteen to twenty-four, linear, 

 obtuse, mucronate; peduncles axillary. Flowers: in spike-like dense 

 racemes, reflexed. Not indigenous. 



A lovely climbing or trailing Vetch, with dense spike-like 

 racemes or deep purple-blue flowers and quantities of deli- 

 cate foliage; the leaves, which are pinnately divided into 

 numerous tiny leaflets, having thread-like tendrils at their 

 tips. 



Vicia americana, or American Vetch, has the same 

 nearly sessile pinnate leaves and slender weak stems as the 

 preceding species. It also climbs and trails over every bush 

 and shrub in its vicinity, clinging to them by means of its 

 tiny tendrils; but it differs entirely from V, Cracca in its 



