LEGUMINOSAE (PULSE FAMILY) 



253 



TRAILING WILD BEAN 

 Strophostyles helvola, Britton 



Native. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom : June to September. 



Seed-time: July to October. 



Range : Atlantic States from Massachusetts to Florida ; along the 

 Great Lakes from Quebec to Minnesota, and southward through 

 the Mississippi Valley to the Gulf of Mexico and Texas. 



Habitat : Sandy fields ; shores of lakes and streams. 



Usually this plant is prostrate, trailing or twining to a length of 

 three to eight feet, branching at the base, and with leaves at some- 

 what distant intervals ; but occasion- 

 ally it will have a stouter, more leafy 

 stalk, held erect and less than two 

 feet tall ; in either form rough, with 

 downward-pointing hairs. The plants 

 are said to be very nutritious and are 

 much liked by grazing cattle, but in 

 cultivated fields they are often rather 

 troublesome. 



Leaves pinnately trifoliolate with 

 slender petioles and very small, narrow, 

 pointed stipules ; leaflets one to three 

 inches in length, rather long ovate, 

 the lateral ones often obtusely lobed 

 on the outer sides and the terminal one 

 on both sides, or the upper leaves may 

 have entire leaflets and the lower ones 

 be distinctly three-lobed. Flowers axil- 

 lary, lifted on long, slender peduncles 

 in dense capitate clusters of three to 

 ten pale purple blossoms, fading to a 

 greenish color, the keels curved and 

 slender, the standards rounded and 

 about a half-inch wide. Pods round, 

 slender, sessile, nearly smooth, tipped 

 with the persistent bent style, four- to eight-seeded, the beans 

 downy. (Fig. 179.) 



