380 
XLI1I. LEGUM1N0S/E. 
[. Trifotium . 
Peduncles axillary, long and erect, bearing a globular head, or rather umbel, of 
white flowers often tinged with pink ; the pedicels after flowering more or less 
elongated and recurved. Calyx-teeth scarcely so long as the tube, the lowest one 
usually the shortest. Pod containing 2 to 4 seeds, usually protruding from the 
calyx, but enclosed in the withered corolla. — Benth. 
Hab.: Europe. This excellent pasture plant is often met with in the southern parts of the 
colony as a stray from cultivation. 
28. LOTUS, Linn. 
(Derivation unknown.) 
Calyx-lobes nearly equal or the lowest longer. Standard obovate or orbicular; 
keel much incurved, beaked. Upper stamens free, the rest united in a sheath ; 
filaments above the sheath, alternately dilated near the top; anthers uniform. 
Ovary sessile, with several ovules ; style bent above the ovary, glabrous, with a 
terminal stigma. Pod usually linear, terete, with cellular partitions between the 
seeds. Seeds not strophiolate. — Herbs or, in species not Australian, undershrubs. 
Leaves of 4 or 5 leaflets, 3 almost digitate at the end of the petiole, 1 or 2 close 
to the stem, taking the place of stipules. Real stipules reduced to minute 
tubercles or dark spots, or entirely wanting. Flowers yellow, pink or white, 
usually several together in an umbel, on an axillary peduncle, with a leaf-like 
bract under the umbel. 
The genus is widely spread over the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere in the Old 
World, the mountains of tropical Asia, and extratropical South Africa. — Benth. 
1. Z>. australis (Australian), Andr. Bot. Rep. t. 624; Bentli. FI. Austr. ii. 
188. A perennial, sometimes almost shrubby at the base, with diffuse ascending 
or erect stems, either glabrous and glaucous or more frequently pubescent on the 
younger branches and peduncles, and in some specimens softly villous all over. 
Leaflets 5, from obovate and about ^in. long to linear and over lin. long. 
Flowers few or many, usually pink and fragrant, but varying much in colour, 
from white to purple. Calyx-lobes usually longer than the tube. Pod cylindrical, 
1 to l^in. long. Ser. in DC. Prod. ii. 212 ; Bot. Mag. t. 1365 ; Hook. f. FI. 
Tasm. i. 98 ; L. lavigatus, Benth. in Mitch. Trop. Austr. 62 ; L. albidus, Lodd. 
Bot. Cab. t. 1063; Maund, Botanist, t. 211. 
Hab.: Keppel Bay, B. Brown ; Port Curtis , M‘ Gillivraij ; Moreton Bay, A. Cunningham; near 
Mount Faraday, Mitchell; Edgecombe Bay, Rockhampton, &c., Dallachy ; a common inland 
plant in the southern parts of the colony. 
The flowers are neither as large nor as fragrant as in the southern colonies. 
The plant has the reputation of being poisonous to stock. 
Var. parviflorus. Leaves small, usually broad. Flowers often solitary or only 2 or 3 
together on the peduncle, very much smaller, and often but not always deeply coloured, the 
calyx-lobes very fine and scarcely so long in proportion to the tube as usual in L. australis. 
Hab.: Inland localities. 
29. PSORALEA, Linn. 
(From psoral cos, scurfy, in allusion to the hairs on the calyx.) 
(Meladenia, Turcz.) 
Calyx-lobes nearly equal or the lowest the largest, or the 2 upper ones united. 
Standard ovate or orbicular ; wings slightly adhering to the keel, which is slightly 
incurved, obtuse, and shorter than the other petals. Upper stamen free or more 
or less adhering to the others ; anthers uniform. Ovary with a single ovule ; 
style filiform or dilated at the base. Pod small, ovate, not dehiscent, the 
pericarp usually adhering to the seed. — Herbs, undershrubs, or rarely shrubs, 
dotted with black or transparent glands. Leaves of 3, 5, or 7 digitate entire 
