pulse Jfamil?. 



Vetch. Vicia Oracca. 



Tare. 



Found along the borders of thickets, and in fields among grasses 

 and grains, in June and July. 



The climbing, leafy stalk grows from 1 to 2 feet high ; it is tough- 

 fibred, and much grooved with fine lines. Color, green. 



The compound leaf is composed of 20 or more side leaflets, and 

 terminates in a tendril ; the leaflets are small and narrow, and are 

 tipped with little needle-like bristles ; the surface is finely downy. The 

 leaves, on very short stems, are alternate and clasping by a pair of 

 half-arrow-shaped w'ings. The color is grayish-green. 



The flower is small, and shaped like the bean blossom ; its color is 

 a fresh, light, bluish-violet tint, the broad upper petal being faintly 

 lined with darker violet ; the calyx is unequally 5-parted, and colored 

 like the corolla. The flowers are densely crowded in long, one-sided 

 curving spikes that grow from the angles of the leaves. 



The leafage of this plant affords a good example of the refined 

 green generally found accompanying flowers of a blue or violet hue; 

 its stalk is perhaps a little awkward in gesture, but not so the flexible 

 curving flower-clusters. It grows in communities, and seen from a 

 little distance forms a beautiful mass of blue. 



ii8 



