122 LEGUMiNOS^. [TrifoUum. 



petiole, of which the stipules seem a meie expansion) and a single lateral rib run- 

 ning up into the points. Flowers crowded in small, roundish, axillary, sessile 

 heads that usually appear densely aggregated towards the base of the stems. 

 Calyx ses.sile, tubular, cylindrical, a little compressed and sometimes curved, 

 faintly ribbed or striate, clothed (at least in my specimens) with a few long scat- 

 tered hairs ; the teeth very long and acute, lanceolate, somewhat falcate, green, 

 with a pale central rib and whitish almost winged margins from their sudden dila- 

 tion below the subulate points ; nearly equal, the 2 upper teeth rather broadest, 

 more or less spreading and recurved, very much so in seed, when they become 

 considerably rigid and the calyx-ribs become very apparent. Corolla very minute, 

 scariose and nearly colourless, slightly greeuish only, according to Smith rose- 

 coloured, a little longer than the calyx-tube but much shorter than its teeth ; 

 standard ovate, closely conduplicate, scarcely striate except when withered. Style 

 long, slender, tapering. Legume very minute, enclosed in the now ventricose and 

 gibbous calyx, short, broad, whitish and membranous, compressed, with thick 

 marginal sutures, glabrous, mostly with a deep notch between the seeds, beaked 

 with the ascending triangular base of the style about the middle of its very obtuse 

 anterior extremity. Seeds 2, greenish or brownish yellow, nearly globular, or by 

 the prominence of the radicle slightly reniform, glabrous and somewhat uneven 

 with a few warty granulations. 



I have observed the style changed occasionally into a small leaf, from excessive 

 humidity. 



The very long petioles, lateral, dense, scarcely orbicular heads of flowers, more 

 distantly serrated leaflets, entire in their lower half, readily distinguish this spe- 

 cies from its congeners. 



b. Heads few -floivered, at length producing thick stellate fibres {abortive calyces) 

 from their centre, which ultimately fold over the fruit. 



9. T. suhterraneuni, L. Subterrmieous Trefoil. " Heads late- 

 ral stalked hairy of few flowers, at length deflexed and throwing 

 out from their centre thick fibres pabnated at the extremity (abor- 

 tive calj'ces) which are closely bent down over the reflexed fruit." 

 —Br. Fl. p. 100. E. B. t. 1048. Rohling's Deutschl. Fl. v. 

 band. s. 974. 



On the short lurf of sandy or gravelly pastures, heaths and commons ; by no 

 means unfrequent. i^/. May, June. Q. 



E. Med. — Sandy ground at I^angbridge, by Newchurch. Profusely in the 

 chamomile pit at the turning off' of the road to the fort from that to Brading, in 

 Sandown village. On the Dover, Eyde, near the ditches. Koyal Heath and San- 

 down bay, plentifully. Between Eyde and Sea View. Near Steephill. Castle 

 Point, Puckaster. Luccorabe Chine. [St. Helen's spit, plentifully, Dr. Bell- 

 Sailer, Edrs.] 



W. J/e(Z.— Near W. Cowes. 



Root small, annual, whitish and tapering, emitting long, slender, branched 

 fibres. Stems several or numerous, simple or alternately branched, stout, rigid, 

 lying quite flat on the ground and spreading in all directions, so as to form with the 

 leaves a close short turf, round, naked and scarred below with the marks of the 

 earlier leafstalks, very downy above with soft, white, spreading hairs, and usually 

 suff'used with purplish red. Leaves alternate ; leaflets nearly sessile, rotundato- 

 obcordate, bright green above, sometimes marked with a black spot in the centre 

 and a whitish transverse band or cloud, from about 3 to 6 lines in length and 

 about the same width, clothed on both sides with copious, white, silky, diverging 

 hairs, minutely crenulate and denticulate along the superior margin, quite entire 

 on their lower edges, which are somewhat rounded rather than cuneate at base, the 

 apex with a broad shallow emargination, the disk traversed by numerous parallel 

 pellucid veins, branched and anastomosing towards their extremities, and running 



