
314 PLANTS GROWING IN WASTE SOIL. 
This ‘‘ splendid tufted vetch,” is found along the borders of 
roadsides and in the thickets. It stretches out its tendrils as 
though it loved to climb and gleefully throws out its bright. 
flowers to mingle with the grasses and brambles. 
V. Americana has larger purple flowers, and but five to seven 
pairs of ovate leaflets. 
HOG-PEANUT. (2/ate CLX.) 
Falcadta comosa. 
FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 
Pulse. Pale ttlac. Scentless. New England to Florida August, September. 
: and westward. 
Flowers : growing in axillary racemes. Ca/yx : tubular; four or five-toothed. 
Corolla : papilionaceous, the standard partly wrapped about the other petals. 
Stamens: ten; united. Pysti2: one. Pods: one inch long; linear. Leaves: 
divided into three, ovate, pointed leaflets; netted-veined; thin; smooth. 
Stem: wiry; three-sided, covered with brown hairs. 
This little plant is another that has its household divided 
against itself. The upper pretty flowers enjoy life, lend them- 
selves to the breeze and are altogether useless; while the 
workers are down below and have no time to deck themselves 
in gay, pretty corollas. It is a graceful climber and has a 
fineness and delicacy of character often strongly in contrast to 
its associates, as it usually twines about coarse, rough plants. 
Whoever maimed the unoffending little thing with the name 
of hog-peanut must still be smarting under the weight of his 
iniquities ; although the circumstance that led to his doing so 
is traced in the underground, pale, one-sided, swollen and hairy 
pods, the product of the hidden blossoms. They are not 
unlike peanuts in appearance, and hogs uproot them to feast | 
upon. Cattle eat also the herbage of the plant. 
SIMPLER’S JOY. BLUE VERVAIN. 
Verbena hastata. 
FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 
Vervain. Purplish blue. Scentless. General.  —»- July, August. 
Flowers : growing in numerous, corymbed, terminal spikes.. Ca/yx ; tubular ; 
five-toothed. Corolla: tubular; salver-shaped; with five lobes. | Stamens ; 


