5 ies as 
CLASS XVII1. ORDER IIL. | OROBUS. 1009 
drooping flowers, the vexillum a purplish crimson, elegantly veined, 
with darker pencilled lines, the keel pale, almost white. Calya 
campanulate, the base obtuse, the mouth oblique, with unequal 
teeth. Legume linear, cylindrical, sub-compressed, smooth, black. 
Seeds about six, oblong, compressed, smooth, dark brown. 
Habitat—Shady rock, Scotland; Den of Airly, Forfarshire ; 
Craiganain, a rock within two miles of Moy House, Inverness-shire. 
Perennial ; flowering in June and July. 
This species has not been many years known as a native of Britain; 
it was discovered by Mr. Drummond, in Scotland. On comparing 
our native specimens with those grown on the Continent, we find the 
former with much smaller leaflets, more ovate, but in every other 
respect the plants are the same. It is not unfrequent in Italy, Spain, 
and Portugal, and is found in the South of Sweden and Norway. 
8. O. sylva'ticus, Linn. (Fig. 1177.) Wood Bitter Vetch. Stem 
angular, branched, decumbent, hairy; leaves pinnate, hairy, with 
seven to ten pairs of ovate oblong acute leaflets; stipules half arrow- 
shaped, linear lanceolate ; peduncles many flowered ; legumes ovate ; 
root with creeping underground stems. 
English Botany, t. 518.—English Flora, vol. iii. p. 272.—Hooker, 
British Flora, ed. 4. vol. i. p. 269.—Lindley, Synopsis, p 87. 
Root with creeping underground stems, woody. Stems mostly 
numerous, spreading, or decumbent at the base, from one to two feet 
long, leafy, branched, angular, and more or less clothed with spread- 
ing pubescence. Leaves with compressed channeled footstalks, 
mostly hairy, leaflets ovate oblong, acute, or lanceolate, each on a 
short footstalk, in from seven to ten pairs, often alternate, a cheerful 
green above, pale and somewhat glaucous beneath, with a prominent 
mid-rib, terminating in a short bristle point. Stipules half arrow 
shaped, with linear lanceolate lobes. Inflorescence angular axillary 
peduncles, shorter than the leaves, terminating in a one-sided raceme 
of numerous cream-coloured flowers, tipped with purple, and striated 
with the same coloured veins. Calya campanulate, the base obtuse, 
the mouth oblique, with unequal teeth. Legume ovate oblong, 
stalked, smooth, sub compressed, short. Seeds about three, nearly 
globular, smooth, dark brown. 
Habitat—Rocky and mountainous woods and thickets in the 
North of England, Scotland, North Wales, and near Cloghjordan, 
King’s County, Ireland. 
Perennial ; flowering in May and June. 
These two last species of Orobus are both beautiful plants, with 
elegant racemes of delicate flowers. They are, as are many other 
species of this plant, found in the wild parts of mountain woods, 
where nature in her sublimity reigns unconquered and unconquerable. 
