LATHY RUS OCHRUS: 

 A NEW YORKSHIRE COLONIST. 



F. ARNOLD LEES, M.R.C.S., L. R. C. P. Lond. , 

 Leeds ; Author of 4 The Flora of West Yorkshire. ' 



On originally-intended Coronation Day (26th June) fell to my 

 friend Mr. Joseph F. Pickard the honour of finding- and enabling 

 me to name with certainty a new West Riding Colonist. I put 

 it in this way because the plant in question had been observed 

 in the spot where Mr. Pickard gathered it, in a young state as 

 early as 1883, and reported to me as Lathy mis Aphaca. In 

 absence of actual specimens this name was accepted by me, 

 the calcareous subsoil being such as the - Yellow Vetchling ' 

 exclusively affects as an indigen, but in consonance with a prac- 

 tice of (perhaps) over-caution, in 1887 I omitted to record it 

 for the Wharfe river basin in my k Flora of West Yorkshire.' 



This 'new' Vetchling is Lathyms Ochrns DC. — the Ochrus 

 pallida of Persoon. It is an abundant Colonist in a large field 

 of grain, sloping down to the north-west from Smaws Wood, 

 i 1 /^, miles west of Tadcaster, south of the river and railway 

 line. The Vetch has appeared hereabouts for fully thirty years, 

 but not always in its entirety flowering and fruiting, by reason 

 of the cutting of the crop. 



When young the plant has a very similar facies to L. Aphaca, 

 the leaf-like decurrent stipules (expansions from the stem) being 

 either bi- or tri-fid, ending in capillaries, the central produced 

 from the mid-rib. When older the petioles (still conspicuously 

 decurrent) have one pair of pinnae, with a third ovate leaf-like 

 prolongation with one or more tendrils at its apex, by which the 

 plant holds on to adjacent vegetation. Full grown, the Vetch 

 attains a height of nearly two feet. The flowers are axillary, 

 solitary, on a brief pedicel, and of fair size, in colour a cream- 

 yellow, papilionaceous and quite half an inch in length. From 

 this soon proceeds a garden-pea-like pod, which, however, is 

 so markedly different from the other species of Lathyrus that 

 Bauhin first described it as Ochrus — a genus to itself. This pod 

 is made flat on the upper side (dorsum) by rectangular wing- 

 expansion from the seed-bearing suture. Length oi ripe 

 fully two inches, carrying three or four peas. 



From its long establishment here this Vetchling seems to 

 merit more notice than is accorded to a casual alien. 1 his 



1902 October i. 



