304 Minnesota Plant Life. 



heads aggregated in coffee-colored clusters at the top of a 

 slender stem from two to five feet high. The stems bear a 

 number of three-compounded leaves in which the leaflets are 

 shaped somewhat like those of the willow. One of these bush 

 clovers has a creeping stem and might be taken for a true clover 

 were it not for the egg-shaped pods which are larger and dis- 

 similar to those of the true clovers. 



Vetches and beach peas. The vetches and beach peas may 

 be recognized, wherever they occur, by the formation of tendrils 

 at the tips of their leaves. There are about ten species in 

 Minnesota. They are found in woods and swales and one 

 variety is very conspicuous on sandy and gravelly beaches 

 throughout the northern part of the state, being particularly 

 abundant at Lake of the Woods and Red lake. This variety, 

 which is known as the beach pea, is seen at its best on the sea- 

 shore. The differences in the vetches lie in the shapes of the 

 leaves and pods, the colors and sizes of the flowers and the 

 development of the tendrils. In general, however, they are 

 supplied with pinnately compounded leaves with one or two 

 tendrils taking the place of the terminal leaflet or pair of leaflets. 



Wild peanuts and wild beans. Not far removed from the 

 beach peas are the groundnuts, wild peanuts and wild beans. 

 In these there are commonly from three to five broad leaflets 

 to each leaf. The stems are slender and twine or climb over 

 the vegetation near them. The flowers are small, blue, pink 

 or violet, and are generally gathered together in rather small 

 clusters. These plants are abundant in the edges of woods. 

 The wild peanut forms two kinds of flowers, small purple or 

 white, ordinary butterfly-shaped flowers on lateral racemes, and 

 peculiar little flowers without petals, on certain slender pros- 

 trate stems which trail along the ground. By means of these 

 two kinds of flowers there is no difficulty in recognizing the 

 wild peanut. The wild beans resemble the wild peanut in their 

 general appearance, but are devoid of the curious inconspicuous 

 flowers. The groundnut usually displays five leaflets in each 

 leaf instead of three, but has the same slender vine-like habit 

 of growth that characterizes the others. All these plants will 

 be found in thickets and underbrush, trailing or climbing over 

 the bushes and thus exposing their own foliage to the light. 



