Cytisus.] XXV. PAPILIONACE. 105 
extending more sparingly to its eastern limits, and northward into southern 
Sweden, Common in Britain. Fl. spring and early summer. 
IV. ONONIS. ONONIS. 
Herbs or low undershrubs, with pinnately trifoliolate, or rarely simple 
leaves; the leaflets generally toothed ; the stipules leafy, adhering to the 
leafstalk ; the flowers solitary, on axillary peduncles, often forming terminal 
leafy racemes, Calyx with 5 narrow segments. Standard large and striate. 
Keel terminating in a pointed beak. Stamens all united in a sheath. Pod 
inflated, with few seeds. 
A rather numerous genus, chiefly from the Mediterranean’ region, and 
not extending far into Asia. The denticulate leaves, are like those of the 
Trifolium group, whilst the stamens are monadelphous, as in Genista and 
its allies. : 
A much branched perennial or undershrub, often thorny . < . 1. O. arvensis, 
A small, erect annual 4 2 : : - - : - 2. O. rveclinuta 
1, O. arvensis, Linn. (fig. 232). Restharrow Ononis.—Very variable 
in aspect, generally a low, spreading, much branched undershrub, often 
rooting at the base or creeping underground, sometimes nearly erect, a 
foot high or more, rarely glabrous, usully thinly clothed with soft spreading 
hairs, and more or less glutinous; the hairs either covering the branches 
all round or chiefly or entirely in two opposite lines ; in dry situations many 
of the small branches end in a thorn. Leaflets obovate or oblong, the 
lateral ones smaller or sometimes wanting. Flowers sessile or shortly 
stalked, solitary, on short branches, or forming short, leafy racemes. 
Flowers pink, the standard streaked with a deeper shade. Pod shorter or 
_ rather longer than the calyx, with 2 or 3 seeds. 
In barren pastures and poor ill-cultivated fields, throughout Europe and 
central and Russian Asia, except the extreme north. Common in Britain, 
Fl. summer and autumn. A glabrous, more erect, and thorny variety is 
often admitted as a species, under the name of O. antiquorum, or O. cain- 
_pestris, It is more common in the south of Europe than in Britain 
| There are two principal forms of this plant: — 
a. O.spinosa proper. Krect, spinous, not foetid, without stolons, leaflets 
usually narrow, pod equalling the calyx. Absent from Ireland, 
b. O. repens, Linn. Prostrate or ascending, viscidly villous, stoloniferous, 
spinous or not, leaflets broader, flowers large, pod usually shorter than the 
calyx. | 
2, O. reclinata, Linn. (fig. 233). Small Ononis.—An erect annual, 
3 or 4 inches high, slightly hairy, and often viscid, the lateral branches 
decumbent at the base. Leaflets small, varying from broadly obovate to 
very narrow. Flowers small, pale pink, hanging from short erect pedicels, 
forming short, terminal, leafy racemes. Petals scarcely exceeding the 
calyx, or shorter. Pod rather smaller, containing 10 or 12 seeds. 
On sands and dry banks near the sea, very common round the Mediter- 
ranean, and here and there on the shores of the Atlantic, up to Alderney in 
the Channel Islands, and again on sea cliffs in Devon, and near the Mull of 
Galloway, on the south-west coast of Scotland. FV. early summer. 
