BLUE AND PURPLE GROUP 



deeply parted. A few on stem, 3-lobed, or divided into 3 leaflets. 

 May to July. 



Low, wet meadows and bogs from New Jersey and Penn- 

 sylvania northward. 



Wild Lupine 



Luptnus perennis, — Family, Pulse. Color, purplish blue. Calyx, 

 deeply 2-divided. Corolla, papilionaceous. Flowers, showy, in 

 long racemes. Stems, 2 feet high, including the pods, hairy. 

 Leaves, compound, palmately divided into 7 to 11 oblanceolate 

 leaflets. May and June. 



Along the sides of railroads and edging the sandy woods, 

 everywhere from Maine to the Gulf, in its season, great 

 bunches of lupine may be seen, patches of blue in the midst 

 of the pretty, conspicuous leaves. (Name from lupus, a 

 wolf, because these plants were thought to consume the 

 fertility of the soil.) 



Rabbit-foot or Stone Clover 



Trifolium arvense. — Family, Pulse. Color, at first purplish, 

 then a soft gray. Flowers, in compact, roundish heads, silky 

 and downy. Stipules present. With persistent, strong roots, it 

 may become a troublesome weed in lawns. 



In the fields, its soft, purplish gray bloom varies with a 

 pleasing tint the greens and browns of grasses. 5 to 10 

 inches high. In dry, poor soil, common. 



Alfalfa. Lucerne 



Medickgo safwa.. — Family, Pulse. Color, purple. Flowers, in 

 racemes. Pods, spirally twisted. Cultivated for fodder, and often 

 becomes wild. 



Tick Trefoil 



Desmodium nadiflorum. — Family, Pulse. Color, purple. Leaves, 

 3-foliate, with roundish or ovate leaflets, pale beneath. Corolla, 

 papilionaceous. July and August. 



The desmodiums, of which there are many species, are dis- 

 tinguished by their jointed pods, which are, mostly, straight 

 on the upper margin, scalloped on the lower. They are cov- 

 ered with bristly hooks, by which they are caught in the hair 

 or fleece of animals and widely scattered. One's feminine 

 skirts are often the medium of such dissemination, much to 

 one's annoyance after a walk in the woods in early fall. 



313 



