THE WILD I BG1 Ml B OP MARYLAND AND THEIR UTILIZATION. 117 



ticks, Meibomia. This genus is also known to botanists 

 BS Desm odium and locally by the common names of tick-trefoil, 

 beggar-weed and beggar-licej on account of the adhesive joints of 

 the pods, which are more or less triangular in shape, flat and easily 

 separated from one another. The leaves are usually comparatively 

 and each with three leaflets. The hush clovers are all perennial 

 herbs, usually tall-growing, the flowers usually purplish like 1 espedeza, 

 but the more than one-seeded pods distinguish them. Some of them 

 are worthy of trial in cultivation. Several are good forage, especially 

 the woodland forms. The genus is well represented in Maryland by 

 the following- species : 



Meibomia arenicola is a trailing plant of dry woods in the Southern 

 States, with small, nearly round, almost smooth leaflets; seen only once 

 in extreme Southern Maryland. (Plate I. Figure 14). 



Meibomia bractcosa, four feet tall, with broad, long-pointed leaf- 

 probably occurs in Maryland near District of Columbia, but is 



most commonly in states west of this. 

 Meibomia cane sc ens is four feet high, with rough, hairy, pale-green, 

 broad, blunt-pointed leaflets. It is common over the eastern half of the 

 United States and is one of the commonest large beggar-ticks of rich 

 soil m Maryland from Frederick to Centreville and Baltimore to Wash- 

 ington, but none have been collected in rhe State outside this region. 

 • ! 'late I. Figures 15 and 16). 



Meibomia Dilleiiii is a lower, smoother plant than the last, and the 

 somewhat hairy, thin, oval, green, blunt-pointed leaflets twice as long 

 as broad. Common in woods and old fields north and west of Mary- 

 land and in most of our counties west of the Bay. 



Meibomia glabella has a long trailing stem, sometimes eight feet 

 long, dnll-green, oval leaflets and purplish flowers. Tt is found in dry, 

 sandy woods along the Atlantic coast, and occurs in Maryland at Salis- 

 bury. 



Meibomia grandiHora is about two to three feet high, the large 

 leaves with round, short-pointed leaikts clustered at the base of the 

 slender, branched flower stem. This plant occurs in dry or rocky woods 

 in the eastern half of the United States, mostly northward. It has been 

 seen rarely in Maryland and District of Columbia. We have a speci- 

 men from Berlin and it is reported from Cumberland. (Plate I. Figure^ 

 1 1 and 14 ). 



Meibomia laevigata. A plant about three feet high with the leaf- 

 lit- oval, blunt-pointed, about twice as long a- broad and perfectly 



1I1. Found in dry woods along the Atlantic coast of the United 

 States. In Maryland it has been seen near Baltimore and Washington 

 and at Easton and Snow Hill. 



Meibomia Marylandica. A plant two to three feet high with small, 

 elliptical leaflets with only a few minute hairs on them. 'Die joints of 

 the pod only two or three, most of the other Species mentioned having 

 more than three. In old fields in the eastern United State-. A com- 



