CLOVERS. 50 



always so covered in this species, whereas, in Medicago lupulina they are naked. 

 Dry pastures and roadsides. June to August. 



X. Small Yellow Trefoil (T. dubium). Stems slight, creeping, nearly smooth. 

 Heads smaller, on long slender stalk. Flowers yellow, the standard narrow, 

 keeled, turning dark brown after flowering and wrapped round the pod. Similar 

 situations and date to last. 



Sain Foin (Onobrychis sativa). Plate 49. 



Still keeping to the Leguminous plants, we have here a 

 handsome herb of aspect very different from that of the 

 Trefoils. It is much cultivated as a fodder plant in dry fields, 

 but will also be found growing wild on chalk-hills and downs. 

 It is, however, suspected of being an escape from cultivation 

 that has taken to an independent life. The plant springs from 

 a perennial woody rootstock, and its stout downy stems are 

 more or less erect. The leaves are pinnate, the leaflets in 

 about twelve pairs and a terminal one. The flowers are in 

 spikes, the standard broad ; bright clear pink, veined with a 

 deeper rosy tint. The pod is semicircular, wrinkled, and 

 contains but one seed. Flowers June to August. The name 

 is derived from two Greek words, signifying the braying of an 

 ass, because that animal is fabled to bray after it when he 

 sees but cannot reach it. 



Eyebright (Eupkrasia offidnalis). 



From the close-cropped turf of our commons and in 

 meadows the bright eyes of this plant peep out through the 

 summer. In such situations it is a very lowly herb, only an 

 inch or so in height, but in some places, as in the pastures of 

 the Highlands, it grows erect to a height of nearly a foot, with 

 many opposite branches. The leaves are ovate, opposite, 

 without stalks, and of a dark-green hue. The flowers are 

 borne near the extremities of the branches. Some of the 

 flowers are much larger than others, and in the larger the 



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