Part II. OROBUS. 265 



OROBXJS ^KSXE,Grh.V\i^.— Variegated Bitter Vetch. 



A COMPACT plant, with two firm and opposite keels on its wiry 

 stems, which ascend in a zigzag manner to about a foot in height, 

 bearing leaves with two or three pairs of leaflets, and rather 

 closely arranged racemes of flowers supported on a footstalk a 

 couple of inches long. The flowers, though small, are beautifully 

 variegated, the upper petal being a fine rose-colour with a net- 

 work of full purplish-crimson veins, the points of the wings being 

 blue. It is a very hardy, easily grown plant, suited for the front 

 margin of the mixed border or the rockwork, and may be in- 

 creased by seeds or division. A native of Southern Italy and 

 Corsica ; not unlike Orobus vernus in habit, but at once distin- 

 guished by its much smaller flowers in shorter, densely packed, 

 racemes. 



OROBUS TE&'Si\l%.—Spring Bitter Vetch. 



This is one of the most charming border-flowers that begin to 

 open in that sweet season, the end of April and beginning of 

 May. From black roots spring rich healthy tufts of leaves with 

 two or three -pairs of shining leaflets, the flower buds showing 

 soon after the leaves, and eventually almost covering the plants 

 with beautiful blooms, purple and blue, with red veins, the keel 

 of the flower tinted with green, and the whole changing to blue. 

 It is no fastidious alpine beauty, that, when carried to our gar- 

 dens in the cultivated plains, sickens and dies for want of the 

 pure cool mountain air and moisture, but a vigorous native of 

 Southern and Central Europe, well able to make the most of 

 our warm deep sandy loams, growing in almost any soil, and 

 perfectly hardy everywhere. It is one of the best ornaments 

 of the mixed border in cultivation, useful for those parts of 

 the rockwork where a bold and vigorous vegetation is desired, 

 and also a noble subject for those who wish to naturalise fine 

 hardy plants in open spots along their wood or shrubbery walks. 

 It may be seen in great abundance in the Royal Botanic Gar- 

 dens -at Edinburgh, where Mr. M'Nab arranges it in lines and 

 various other ways, in which we are not accustomed to see it. 

 It varies a good deal — all the better, of course — the niost marked 

 of the known varieties or sub-species being ruscifolius undjiac- 

 cidus. Flowers in April and May ; grows from ten inches to 



