CLOVERS. 95 
honeysuckle does. It has a brilliant red flower, a very dark 
green thick leaf, a deep tap-root, often half-an-inch thick, and 
no stock will eat the foliage, unless starved to it, it having an 
intensely bitter taste. J have collected seed from wild plants 
in South Wales, Yorkshire, and Ireland, and sown them side 
by side in our trial grounds. On the thin gravelly soil there, 
the plant becomes much less rank growing, and assumes a 
dwarf, dense habit, whilst retaining its distinctive botanical 
characteristics. Its bright crimson flower and laurel green 
leaf enable it to be distinguished from all other clovers a long 
distance off. 
‘“‘T have not the slightest doubt that the true single-cut cow 
grass you and other practical farmers know so well, and 
appreciate so highly (but which some botanists refuse to 
acknowledge), is the result of a cross between Z7ifolium 
pratense and Trifolium medium, retaining, as it does, all 
the succulence and attractive flavour of Z7rifolium pratense, 
and obtaining from its other parent the long tap-root, the 
woody stem, and the staying late-flowering qualities of Z7folium 
medium, 
‘“‘T need not ask you to be so kind enough to take every care 
of the specimens sent you, and to return them at your con- 
venience. 
“T ought just to add that the specimen of Z7ifolium medium 
sent, is one that was grown after some years’ cultivation in our 
trial ground, and not a type of the plant in its rampant wild 
state.” 
With the letter he sent us for inspection some beautifully 
preserved specimens of Zrifolium medium, Trifolium pratense, 
and Trifolium sylvestre. They are before us as we write, and 
much as we admire them, and greatly as they guide us, we 
cannot but again remark that a single specimen gives but an 
inadequate idea of the growth of any plant, so much do they 
vary by land, age, and other circumstances. 
