314 DIADELPHIA— DECANDRIA. Lotus. 



Loti comiculatse major species. Rail Syn. 334. Bauh. Hist. v. 2. 



355./. 356. 

 Lotus. Riv. Tetrap. Irr. 1. 1&. f. 1. 



jS, L. pentaphyllos medius pilosus. T>ill. in Raii Syn. 334. 

 L. corniculatus S. Fl. Br. 794. 



In wet bushy places, osierholtSj and hedges. 



Perennial.' July, August. 



Very different from the foregoing .s,pecies in general habit, and now 

 technically distinguished by several clear and sufficient charac- 

 ters, for most of which I am indebted to the worthy Dean of 

 Bristol. Every botanist had been struck with the aspect of the 

 plant, and Scopoli long ago proposed it as a species, but without 

 a sufficient specific definition, except that of the shorter separate 

 filaments not being, like the longer ones, dilated under their an- 

 thers. The stems are from 1 to 2 or 3 feet high, upright, clothed, 

 more or less, with long loosely-spreading hairs, rarely quite 

 smooth ; internally hollow, or tubular, with little or no pith in 

 any part, which I take to be an important character. Leaiies 

 fringed or clothed with similar hairs. Fl. fi'om C to 1 2 in each 

 head, of a duller orange than the former. Calyx-teeth stellated 

 in an early state ; their mterstices, when fully expanded, acutan- 

 gular, not rounded. Claw of the standard almost linear, though 

 vaulted. Legumes not horizontal, but drooping, slender and 

 exactly cylindrical. 



Whether there may be any difference in the agricultural qualities of 

 these plants, and whether the present might be capable of culti- 

 vation in very wet meadows, nobody has hitherto inquired. 



3. L. decmnbens. Spreading Bird's-foot-trefoil. 



Heads of few flowers. Stems recumbent, nearly solid. Le- 

 gumes somewhat spreading, cylindrical, two-edged. Ca- 

 lyx hairy ; its teeth shorter than the tube. 



L. decumbens. Forst. Tonbr. 86. 



In fields and meadows. 



At Hastings, Sussex, near Bulverhithe ; also in meadows near 

 Tonbridge. Forster. In fields near Forfar, North Britain. Mr. 

 G. Don. 



Perennial. July. 



Stems widely spreading, partly quite prostrate, a foot or more in 

 length, branched, filled with light pith, angular, leafy, smooth, 

 somewhat glaucous. Leaves glaucous, smooth above j occa- 

 sionally clothed beneath with short, close, bristly hairs. Leaf- 

 lets and stipulas similar, lanceolate, pointed, oblique, except the 

 terminal one, which is obovate-lanceolate. Common footstalk 

 but half the length of the leaflets, channelled, slightly bordered. 

 Flower-stalks axillary, 4 or 5 times the length of the leaves. 



