Wild Flowers of Georgetown. 319 



rattle, sounding very like that of the rattle-snake, that 

 has gained the plant its scientific as well as its popular 

 names.* 



Another bright yellow flower of the papilionaceous 

 kind is the yellow seaside pea fViana vexillata) , with 

 flowers that are held erect, three or four together, 

 on longish stalks, whence the specific name from 

 vexillum, a standard. It is a twining and trailing 

 plant, with trifoliate leaves, the three leaflets nar- 

 row and pointed. A smaller, slenderer kind, of 

 more twining growth, and very narrow lance-shaped 

 leaflets, is the lesser yellow seaside pea (Vigna luteola). 

 It may be distinguished from the last with certainty by 

 examining the keel of the flower, which in this species 

 is twisted like a ram's horn, while in the common seaside 

 pea it is boat-shaped as usual. t 



The other common yellow papilionacea^ are tolerably 

 upright shrubs or bushes, running up. to ten or twelve 

 feet in height. Most land near town is periodically 

 " wed," to use the local phrase, by the simple process 

 of chopping everything down to the bare soil with a 

 cutlass ; a necessity no doubt, but a melancholy neces- 

 sity for the botanist, who finds his half-explored treasure- 

 ground of yesterday a barren waste to-day. Hence, many 

 plants are most often seen as low herbs or shrubs that 

 grow to a much greater height in any undisturbed 

 locality. 



One of these is the common sesban y or swamp-pea 



* Crotalaria from Gk. Krotalon, a rattle. The rattlesnake is Crotahts 

 horrid us. 



t Grisebach's V. luteola is mainly the V. vexillata of Bentham, and 

 vice versa. 



