CROTALARIA VERRUCOSA. 
(Warted Crotalaria.) 
Class. Order . 
DIADELPHIA, DECANDRIA. 
Natural Order, 
LEGUMINOSiE. 
Generic Character.— Calyx five-lobed, somewhat 
bilabiate, upper lip bifid, lower one trifid. Vexillum 
large, cordate. Keel falcate, acuminated. Filaments 
all connected with the sheath, cleft in front. Style 
bearded laterally, pubescent. Legume turgid, with the 
valves ventricose, usually many-seeded, pedicellate. 
Specific Character. — Plant an annual. Stipules 
lunate, decimate; leaves oval, obtuse; branches 
acutely tetragonal ; racemes terminal ; ovaries villous. 
Corolla with the vexillum greenish-white, streaked 
with pale-blue inside, and with the wings obovate, yel- 
lowish-white at the base ; the rest blue, and with the 
keel whitish, but yellowish at the point. Anthers yel- 
low.— Don's Gard. and Botany. 
Synonymes. — Crotalaria ccerulea, C. angulosa, C, 
acuminata ? 
Crotalaria is a very numerous and widely-distributed genus ; about one hundred 
and fifty species are recorded as belonging to it, and as inhabiting the East and 
West Indies, the Cape of Good Hope, Mexico, &c. The same accounts state about 
the half to be annuals, two-thirds stove-plants, near a fourth greenhouse, and the 
remainder hardy ; that few are remarkable for beauty ; and that the chief colours of 
the flowers are yellow, white, and purple, with some of intermediate tints. 
The present individual is of very old acquaintance, having been introduced more 
than a century ago ; is a native of the East Indies, and a plant of considerable 
interest, though not equally ornamental with the majority of those whose represen- 
tatives occupy our pages. In the temperate stove, the warmth of which, or that of 
a close greenhouse, it requires, it forms a rather dwarf bush, flowering freely in 
summer. When its blossoms are developed in partial shade, they come more blue 
than they would otherwise do. Botanists regard it as an annual, which, doubtless, 
it properly is, though under culture it succeeds and propagates as a perennial, 
perfecting seeds tolerably free ; hence, also, it can be grown as an annual. 
Such plants as Crotalaria verrucosa , notwithstanding they may possess few 
beauties, or be of minor interest, should be had in proportionate numbers in collec- 
tions where even really beautiful or ornamental things only are cared for ; not so 
much for their own sake as on account of the latter, whose excellence, by contrast, 
they are always instrumental in setting off to greater advantage. 
