186 
25. LEGUMIN0S2E. 
very flat and thin, curved almost into a circle, with large circular 
or horse-shoe-shaped sinuses at regular distances on the convex 
upper side, hispid or muriculate-scabrous with dense short erect 
glandular spinules or bristles all round the sinuses where the 
seeds lie arching round them, and indistinctly ciliate with very 
short tubercular or glandular pale points at the opposite or upper 
convex excised edge, which is also red or purplish before ma- 
turity. When ripe the whole pod is reddish-brown. Seeds 
brown smooth shining angularly compressed slender horse- 
shoe-shaped curving semic-ircularly round the sinuses. 
** FI. umbellate. L. simple. 
18. Scorpiurtjs L. 
1. S. sulcata L. ! Cabreira. 
Nearly or quite smooth ; ped. longer than the 1, 1-4-fl. ; cal.- 
teeth ovate-triangular shorter or not longer than the tube ; 
pods armed loosely curled downwards, the volutions distinct 
or distant unentangled and nearly in the same plane, ribbed 
lengthways, the inner ribs unarmed, the 4 outer armed with 
distinct not crowded bristlv spines with slightlv hooked points. 
— Desf. ii. 174; Buch ! 197. no. 398 ; DC. ii. 308; WB. ii. 115. 
S. subvillosa Hoiks List ! in J. of Bot. i. 20 (not Linn.). S. 
echinata var. sulcata Brot. ii. 79. — Herb. ann. Mad. reg. 1, 2 
(principally 1), ccc; PS. reg. 1, 2, 3, ccc. Waste ground, 
borders of cornfields and road-sides Mad. everywhere ; in PS. 
up the P. do Castello, P. d’ Anna Ferreira, in the Serra de Fora, 
&c. Feb.-May. — St. prostrate, the ends ascending, rather stout 
and stiff, pale gr. L. dark shining gr. very variable in size and 
shape mostly subspathulate -lanceolate acute, much attenuated 
downwards into tin; long narrowly winged or margined petiole, 
ribbed not veined from 2-6 in. (with petiole) long and £-l£ in. 
broad. Ped. 1-5 or 6 in. long axillary 1-4- mostly 1-, rarely 
more than 2-fl. FI. small bright full y. Cal.-teeth broad and 
short acute. Pods mostly reddish scarcely so thick as a crow- 
quill, irregularly waved and spiral in one plane, contracted 
between the seeds and thus singularly flexuose or wavy in short 
arches, armed with 4 rows of very unequal spines or bristles 
often a line long on their upper or outer convex dorsal side. 
The true S. subvillosa L. ! (S. sulcata FI. Gr. t. 719 not Linn. !) 
distinguishable, as well observed by Boissier, by its pods being 
from their earliest stage strongly and irregularly curled or 
twisted into a confused closely entangled mass, has not hitherto 
occurred in Mad. Webb however records it as a Canarian pi., 
and I have, I believe, myself collected it in Palma. 
