OCTANDRIA TRIGYNIA. Pol/gonum. 115 



An. June. 



Stems branches much straddHng, slightly furrowed, glaucous, or 

 purplish. Ls. alternate, entire. Siip. often red. Fl. clustered, 

 on short stalks, small, red, white, and green, coloured. Seed 

 black, polished. FL greenish on outside, white within, often 

 tinged with pink ; from egg-shaped, to spear-shaped, and even 

 linear. Variable in shape, and size of Is. Stam. seldom ten. 

 Seeds food for small birds : for same uses as those of P. Fagopy- 



rum. Hogs eat the plant with avidity. This one of the plants, 



which have acquired the name of grass, because eaten by cattle. 



*P. Fagopyrum.^ Buck-wheat, or Brank. Leaves 

 heart-arrow-shaped. Stem nearly upright, without 

 prickles. Angles of the seeds even. E- B. 1044, 

 Tragopyron. G. E. 89. 



Cultivated fields. From the East originally. 

 An. July. 



Root fibrous. Plant succulent. Stem one £, or more, branched, 

 rather zigzag, smooth, leafy, except a downy line on one side. 

 Ls. acute, smooth ; uppermost stalkless. Stip. small. Fl. in 

 panicled clusters, variegated with red and white ; yellow glands 

 between all the filaments. Styles divided to the base. 

 Very impatient of frost. Seeds made into meal-cakes here, and 

 in Japan ; food for pheasants, and poultry ; planted near bee-hives, 

 as flowering late. Unwholesome food for sheep. Used for clean- 

 ing foul land : ploughed in as a manure when fully grown, or 

 mown for fattening swine and poultry with the gi'ain. An oil from 

 the seeds. 



P. Convolvulus. Climbing Buck-wheat. Black Bind- 

 weed. Leaves heart-arrow-shaped. Stem twining, 

 angular. Segments of the calyx bluntly keeled. E« 

 B. 941. C. 4. 29. Volubilis nigra. G. E. 863. 

 Cornfields, gardens. 

 An. July. 



Stem climbing to five to six f , leafy, unsupported ; the stem is 

 short and trailing. Ls, alternate, stalked, waved, smooth. FL 

 greenish- white, found even as low as the base of the common fl.- 

 stalk ; in terminal, interrupted spikes, each on a small drooping 

 stalk. 

 Seeds for small birds, nutritious, like those of P. Fagop. but less 



Wheat resembling the beech (mast,) /«§•««, and jmros. 



