WALTER E. ROGERS. 
During recent years the legumes have not only become of firs^ 
importance as hay and forage crops but they have been found 
to be of even more importance as restorers, of soil fertility. The 
amount of interest and attention given to the group by working 
botanists has been large and ever increasing. It would seem 
that we ought to know as much as possible about our economic 
plants. It is with this in mind that the present paper is sub- 
mitted. Mel Hot us alba (Desr.), once a despised roadside weed, 
is now recognized as a valuable crop plant and is grown over 
thousands of acres of our soil. A brief report is here made of a 
study of the stem, flower, and pollen. 
ANATOMY OF THE STEM. 
Stems a millimeter in diameter were the youngest which were 
sectioned. At this stage the vascular bundles are still separate. 
The pith is wide and the stem is much fluted (1, figure 81). At 
a diameter of two millimeters a wide continuous ring of wood 
has formed and a narrow zone of phloem, while in the cortex the 
bast has developed (2, figure 81) . In the mature sj^m (3, figure 
82) which may attain a basal diameter of over two and a half 
centimeters, the bast becomes quite prominent on account of the 
thickening of the walls of its cells (4, figure 82). In radial 
thickness the bast columns vary from three to five cells. Isolated 
fibers measure 5.65 by 0.033 millimeters. The wood fibers are very 
short compared with the bast, measuring only 0.75 by 0.02 milli- 
meters. The medullary rays are generally one cell in width, some- 
times two, and rarely three. In tangential and radial sections 
they appear several to many cells in vertical height and their 
cells are peculiar in having their long axes parallel with the 
length of the stem. The bast and wood combine to give to the 
stem great stiffness, a quality of considerable importance in a 
hay or pasture plant, but also open to some objections since the 
older stems become exceedingly hard and unfit for feeding. 
ORGANOGRAPHY OF THE FLOWER. 
The inflorescence is a spikelike raceme and contains forty to 
sixty flowers, which are white and strongly zygomorph jc. The 
