XX. 



JULY FLOWERS. 



SEE here, straggling over the tall weeds on the bank, to 

 which it clings by its twining curled tendrils, I have 

 lighted on a graceful spray of the true vetch, with its 

 pretty purplish pea-flowers and its long, shiny, grass- 

 green pods. It is a common plant enough, this southern 

 vetch ; for though it is not an aboriginal inhabitant of 

 Britain, it has been cultivated for fodder so long in our 

 meadows that it is now perfectly acclimatised, and 

 spreads readily like a native denizen among pastures 

 and waste patches. But what gives it a special interest 

 at the present moment is that I have caught it, so to 

 speak, in the very act, helping to verify an old surmise 

 as to the true purpose of these little black spots on the 

 flaps or wings that guard each separate flower-stalk. 

 At the point where the blossoms spring from the stem 

 you will notice two small barbed leaflets stipules we 

 call them technically each with a round dark patch in 

 its hollow centre. Now, if you look at them closely, 

 you will see that the dark patches are moist with some 

 viscid substance ; and if you taste it you will find that 

 it is nothing more or less than a drop of pure honey. 

 On this particular vetch-vine, however, each of these 



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