88 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



Leaflets |- to 1 inch long, varying in breadth. Stipules narrowly 

 lanceolate, usually with a single long triangular tooth at the base 

 on the side next the stalk. Peduncles li to 6 inches long, naked 

 at the base, tei-minating in a dense raceme of unilateral spread- 

 ing-reflexed flowers. Calyx-tube scarcely longer than broad, very 

 convex on the upper side ; upper teeth scarcely one-sixth the length 

 of the tube and very broad, the lateral ones triangular, about two- 

 thirds the length of the tube, the lowest of all subulate and equal 

 to the tube. Flowers ^ inch long, bright-blue; standard dilated 

 above the base on each side below the middle, and again contracted 

 at rather more than one-third from the apex, where it is emarginate ; 

 wings nearly as long as the standard ; keel shorter. Style with 

 rather long woolly hairs jvist below the apex. Pods f to 1 inch 

 long, fawn-coloured when ripe, faintly reticulated, forming an 

 obtuse angle upwards with its gynophore, the upper and lower 

 margins nearly parallel, obliquely truncate in an ogee curve at the 

 apex, where the upper suture is a little deflexed, so that the beak is 

 slightly bent down ; beak tipped by the style, which is sharply 

 bent upwards. Seeds globular, ^ inch in diameter, dim, black, or 

 olive inarbled with black. Plant greyish-green, slightly pubescent, 

 the leaves sometimes with silky hairs, especially on the under side, 

 most apparent when young. 



Tiified Vetch. 



French, Vesce Cracca. German, Gemeine Vogelwicki. 



This beautiful jilant grows several feet high, often covering the hedges with its 

 slender stems and leaves and long dense clusters of purplish-blue flowers, forming one 

 of the greatest ornaments of our country lanes in the middle and latter part of summer. 

 Dr. Plot, in his " Natural History of Staffordshire," says that this and the Wood Vetch 

 advance starved or weak cattle above any other provender. The Vetches yield abundance 

 of food ; but the great difliculty in the way of their cultivation as fodder is that, away 

 from their native situations, where they hang and support themselves by their spiral 

 tendrils on hedges or trees that may be near them, they would doubtless be vexy trou- 

 blesome, and probably choke themselves for want of support. 



SPECIES v.— VI CIA OROBUS. D.G. 



Plate CCCLXXXVI. 



Orobus sylvaticus, Linn. Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 518. 



Vicia cassubica, var. Orobus, Serinye, in Z>. C. Prod. Vol. II. p. 356. 



Rootstock short, not stoloniferous. Stem stout, erect not climb- 

 ing'. Leaves with 6 to 14 pairs of oval or oblong-elliptical leaflets, 

 rounded or abruptly acuminated and mucronate at the apex; common 

 petiole terminating in a short straight subulate point. Stipules 

 half-sagittate or half-hastate-sagittate, frequently toothed on the 

 outer margin. Peduncles equalling or exceeding the leaves, with 



