ONO'NIS HIRC1NA. 
STRONG-SCENTED REST-HARROW. 
Class. 
diadelphia. 
Order. 
DECANDRIA. 
Natural Order. 
LEGUMINOSjE. 
Native of 
Height. 
Flowers in 
Duration. 
Cultivated 
Italy. 
18 inches. 
June, July. 
Perennial 
in 1596. 
No. 174. 
The name of this genus has been handed down 
from the ancients, and is derived from the Greek 
onos, an ass; and onemi, to delight; in conse- 
quence of the partiality of those animals towards 
the plant which originally bore the appellation; but 
that it was any one which is now so called, is not 
quite certain. Hircina, from the Latin hircus, a 
goat; in allusion to the goat-like smell of the herb. 
Our English species, the Ononis spinosa, obtained 
the name of Rest-plough or Rest-harrow, from the 
resistance given by its strong cord-like roots to these 
implements of agriculture. 
Several species of the Rest-harrow, even the 
wild one of the English banks, the Ononis spinosa, 
are rendered very ornamental, if kept in poor 
gravelly soil ; but when planted in rich light earth, 
both the roots and branches, of the latter one in 
particular, extend themselves unduly, and but few 
flowers are proportionally yielded. 
The stems of this species are herbaceous, and the 
root is hard and woody, like the wild one just no- 
ticed. It may be propagated from seeds, sown in 
the spring; or the roots may be divided. 
Hort. Kew. 2, v. 4, 276. 
