Desmodium.] 
LEGUMLN'OSiE. 
75 
procumbent wiry much branched stems, finely pilose upwards. Leaves 
short-petioled ; leaflets 3, obovate, | in. long, truncate or emarginate ; 
stipules lanceolate, persistent. Flowers 1-3 together in the axils of 
the leaves, on slender pedicels i-f in. long. Calyx 1 V _ '8 long; 
teeth deep, setaceous. Corolla red, small, little exserted. Pod §~J in. 
long, sessile, glabrescent, recurved ; joints 3-4, square ; upper suture 
straight, lower little indented. Hedysarum triflorum, Linn. Sagotia 
triflora, IValp. 
Mauritius, frequent in dry soil. Champ de Mars, Pouce, hills of the Riviere 
Noire, etc. Rodriguez, on the shore in one or two places, Balfour l Praslin and 
other islands of the Seychelles, Horne ! Round the world in the tropics. 
Var. D. heterophylltjm, DC. Prod. ii. 334. A more robust 
variety, with larger leaves, joints of pod 4-5 and flowers produced 
both from the axils of the leaves and also from upper nodes which do 
not bear leaves. D. csespitosum, DC. Prod. ii. 333. 
Mauritius, frequent through the island in dry ground, ascending high up the 
hills. Seychelles, Bojer ! Also Tropical Asia. Trifle. Petit trefle. 
8. D. umbellatum, DC. Prod. ii. 325. A shrub, 6-10 ft. high, 
with densely silky branches. Stipules lanceolate, deciduous ; petioles 
1-1 \ in. long ; leaflets 3, distinctly stalked, broad oblong, obtuse or 
subacute, 3-4 in. long, firm, very glaucous, thinly silky beneath. 
Flowers 6-12, in dense nearly sessile umbels in the axils of the leaves ; 
pedicels £ in., pilose. Calyx in. ; teeth lanceolate, as long as the 
turbinate tube. Corolla \ in., red. Pod sessile, with 1-4 pilose deeply 
indented joints, each £-§ in. long. 
Mauritius, naturalised on the shore at G-randport, Ayres ! Seychelles, com- 
mon on the shore of Praslin, Horne ! Perville ! Also Zanzibar, Bourbon, Madagascar, 
and Tropical Asia. 
Mr. Horne has gathered in Mahe and Dr. Balfour in Rodriguez flowerless spec! - 
mens of a Desmodium that is most likely D. ascendens, Sw. It is a trailing finely 
pilose herb, with small lanceolate stipules, lower leaves trifoliolate, upper simple, 
leaflets broad obovate obtuse rounded or slightly cordate at the base, under an inch 
long, green and glabrous above, glaucous and finely pilose beneath. D. ascendens 
has very lax terminal racemes, pedicels half an inch long, large ovate-cuspidate 
densely hairy bracts, a minute calyx with linear teeth, and a small pilose pod of 4-5 
joints, straight on the upper, deeply indented on the lower suture. 
# Bremontiera Ammoxylon, DC., in Ann. Sc. Nat. Ser. 1, iv. 93, which 
we have from Bourbon, from Dr. Cordemoy, is reported by Bojer from 
the shores of Mauritius, but the plant sent under the name from the 
Mauritian herbarium is Desmodium mauritianum. Bremontiera is a shrub 
with the habit of an Indigofera, nearly sessile simple coriaceous oblong- 
lanceolate leaves above an inch long clothed with short grey bristly 
hairs, flowers in dense spike-like racemes, a silvery campanulate calyx 
T V in. long with 5 small acute teeth, a corolla three times as long as the 
calyx, and a pod with 12 or 14 rather compressed joints, which finally 
separate from one another. 
