208 BLUE TO PURPLE 



H. boreale var. albijioriim, referred to in the White to Green 

 Section, bears rather finer blossoms, its racemes being more 

 closely flowered. In Plate LX the tall flower in the centre is 

 the White Hedysarum, the one to the left being a specimen 

 of the Purple Hedysarum. 



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 of deep purple-blue flowers and quantities of delicate 

 foliage ; the leaves, which are pinnately divided into numerous 

 tiny leaflets, having thread-like tendrils at their tips. 



V. America7ia, or American Vetch, has the same nearly 

 sessile pinnate leaves and slender weak stems as the preced- 

 ing 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. Ci'dcca in its flowers, which are 

 larger, more mauve in hue, and grow in a scanty, very loose 

 fashion, as opposed to the dense spike-like racemes of the 

 Cow Vetch. 



To see the mountain woods blued by these two graceful 

 plants recalls Emerson's reference to how 



" The million-handed Painter pours 

 Opal hues and purple dye " 



out upon the flowers of the forest. 



The Astragalus , Oxytropis, Hedysarum, and Vicia all belong 

 to the Pea Family, and therefore their flowers are all papil- 

 ionaceous ; that is to say, they have irregular butterfly-shaped 

 blossoms. 



