984 LOTUS. [CLASS XVII. ORDER III. 
3. tenuifolius. (Fig. 1141.) Stem slender, filiform; leaves and 
stipules linear lanceolate, smooth, or sparingly scattered over with 
hairs. 
LZ. tenuis, Kit. et Willd—English Botany, Suppl. t. 2615.— 
Hooker, British Flora, ed. 4, vol. i. p. 278.—Lindley, Synopsis, p. 
82.—L. depressus et humifusus, Willd.—Z. decumbens, Forst.— 
English Flora, vol. iii. p. 814.—ZL- corniculatus, —De Cand. Prod. 
2. p. 214. 
foot tapering, and with branched fibres. Stems several, from six 
to twelve inches long, spreading in every direction, prostrate or de- 
cumbent at the base, erect above, round, or somewhat angular, 
simple or branched, quite smooth, and of a glaucous green, or more 
or less clothed with soft spreading hairs. Leaves numerous, with 
short compressed petioles, with a pair of stipules at the base, and 
like the sessile leaflets obovate, oblong, or linear, a dark green, 
somewhat glaucous beneath, and smooth, or ciliated, or more or less 
hairy. Inflorescence depressed umbellate heads, with an involucrate 
leaf at the base, of from six to ten flowers, elevated on a long slender 
peduncle, arising from the axis of the leaves. Flowers bright yellow, 
the vexillum darker coloured, and mostly striated with crimson, be- 
coming dark green with drying. Calyx on short pedicles, curved 
downwards, campanulate, smooth, or more or less hairy, the teeth 
awl shaped, with a triangular base. Corolla three or four times as 
long as the calyx, keel with a long compressed point, wings oblong, 
obtuse, shorter than the ascending obovate vexillum, with its broad 
vaulted claw. Legume about an inch long, cylindrical, smooth, with 
an elevated suture on each side, of a purplish brown colour. Seeds 
numerous, kidney-shaped, smooth. 
Habitat.—Pastures and waste places, abundant ; 8. 3. less frequent. 
Perennial ; flowering from July to August. 
This is an extremely variable plant, in the greater or less develope- 
ment of its leaves, and in being quite smooth or more or less hairy ; 
these varieties seeming to depend upon the soil in which they have 
grown being more or less moist. The lotus has been strongly recom- 
mended by some writers as a valuable agricultural plant, doth for 
permanent pastures and hay; but by others, as Miller, it has 
been equally depreciated for such purposes. It would, however, 
seem this trefoil is in many pastures of considerable value, and 
affords a good supply of herbage in succession ; for like some other 
plants, the more it is cropped down the greater is its effort to repair 
its loss: and for this purpose its root becomes much elongated, 
stronger and stouter, and the number of its branches greatly in- 
creased, so that in many, and especially moist, pasture lands it 
must yield a valuable produce. 
2. L. ma'jor, Scop. (Fig. 1142) Greater Bird’ sfoot Trefoil. Stem 
erect, smooth or hairy ; heads depressed, umbellate, on long pedun- 
