8 BIRD S-FOOT TREFOIL. 



narrow -leaved species is much like the common 

 kind, but is larger : it grows in moist, bushy 

 places, and by the sides of streams and rivers, 

 and its stems are more straggling. We have 

 altogether four wild species of the Bird's-foot 

 Trefoil. The rare plant, called the Narrow- 

 podded Bird's-foot Trefoil, which is found on 

 a few rocky places by the sea-coast, is, in one 

 variety, altogether much smaller than either 

 of the others, and somewhat different in its 

 general appearance. There is a very pretty 

 tiny flower on our sandy and gravelly soils, 

 called the Bird's-foot, with white, pea-shaped 

 blossoms, marked with red lines, which is often 

 mistaken for a Lotus : but this belongs to a 

 different genus of plants, and is not a Trefoil, 

 having about six or seven pairs of leaflets oh 

 its leaf- stalk. Flowers formed like these are 

 called papilionaceous, or butterfly-shaped, and 

 plants with these blossoms have their seeds 

 in pods. 



