22 PEACOCK : COW-GRASS AND RYE-GRASS. 
The so-called perennial variety is the saf/vum of Schreber, 
a Dutch and N. German native, and not uncommonly found in 
England as an escape from cultivation. It may be distinguished. 
from the variety coming next by having the stem erect, robust, 
furrowed, and less hairy ; leaflets nearly entire ; stipules very large ; 
ealyx teeth a little shorter than the calyx tube, and erect in fruit; 
flower dull purplish pink or more rarely ochreous white. This is 
usually solid ; stipulus much smaller; calyx teeth about equal to 
e and spreading in fruit; more hairy, especially the calyx ; 
the bck of a deeper purple ad the whole plant a lighter green 
than sativum. This is the native Red Clover of England, or Cow- 
grass, common on road-sides, field-borders, and in pastures, where 
itis known as Honeystalks and Honeysuckle Clover, and by a score 
of other names too familiar to print. There are many intermediate 
forms between these two varieties, which are perfectly indistinguish- 
able from verbal descriptions ; a trained eye can separate the green 
but not the dried specimens. 
The next point to consider is, are either of these species truly 
perennial? Both are and both are not, and the same rule applies to 
the intermediate forms. On some ae deep loams, sy/vestre is 
practically perennial, and in the same favoured spots sativum 
is certainly so. But, speaking paste hg Sees is perennial, though 
there can be no doubt that the sativum forms have a more tenacious 
hold on most soils than the sy/vestre forms. It is a question of soil 
and climate, of whether the forms, if not able to renew themselves 
by seeding can throw out prostrate stems rooting at the nodes, 
rather than an inherent quality of the species. It has been asserted* 
that Z. saectner, perenne doubtless originated in a cross between 
T. pratense an - medium. But as far as we are aware, not 
a particle of evidence has been brought forward to prove this 
statement, and hybridity is a question about which botanists want 
the fullest proof or they withhold their belief. For years the White 
or Dutch Clover of commerce—Z. repens 1..—was believed to be a 
hybrid because it soon died out in permanent pastures.+ Now we 
have hybridity suggested as the most likely reason for the very 
opposite characteristic of a variety of another species. 7: medium 
* Martin J. Sutton’s ‘ Permanent and Temporary Pastures,’ 5th ed., 1895, p. 75 
Tt G, Sinclair’s ‘ Hortus Gramineus Woburnensis,’ 2nd ed., 1825, p. 223, foot- 
ie. 
Naturalist, — 
