.305 
HEDY 
naked, ftraight; ftem difiufed. Ro6t biennial. Stems 
froni two to three feet high, hollow, fmooth, branch¬ 
ing. Leaves cofnpofed of five or fix pairs of oval leaf¬ 
lets, terminated by an odd one ; they are alternate, and 
from the angles which they form with the ftem and 
branches, peduncles come out five or fix inches in length, 
fuftaining fpikes of beautiful red flowers, which open in 
June and July, and perfect feeds in September, after 
which the roots commonly decay ; but if the plants be 
put down before they feed, they will lad longer. A 
leaf of this fpecies is (town on the Botany Plate VII. 
fig. 13. Native of Spain and Italy ; Ray obferved it in 
Sicily ; in Calabria it grows wild in great luxuriance, 
near four feet liigh, affording excellent nourilhment to 
horfes and mules, both green and made into hay ; but 
it does not well bear the fpring in the north of Italy; 
we may prefume, therefore, that it will fcarcely bear 
our climate well enough to anfwer the purpofes of huf- 
bandry. Olbeck mentions, that he faw it brought into 
Cadiz in great bundles, as food for the cattle. In Ger-' 
man, French, Italian, and Spani.fli, it lias the name of 
fulla-, in German it is alfo called kronenklee, Jckildhlee, 
and Spanifcke kite; in French, fainfoin d'efpagtie, and fain- 
Join a bouquets-, in Dutch Jierlyk kaanekop. Parkinfon calls 
it red fattinflower, or redflozoered fitchling , and obferves 
that fome foolifhly call it, red or French honeyfuckle: the 
foolilh name, however, has obtained in Englifli. He 
informs us (1629), that the variety with a white flower 
grew at Stubbers by North Okenden, in the garden in 
Mailer William Coys, a gentleman of good refpeft in 
Effex, a great and ancient lover and cherilher, of thefe 
delights, and of all other rare plants. It was cultivated 
in 1596, by Gerarde. 
70. Hedyfarum flexuofum, or waved-podded hedyfa- 
rum: legumes jointed, prickly, flexuofe; ftem diffuled. 
This has fome refemblance to the foregoing, but is much 
fmaller. The ftalks rife near a foot high, and the leaves 
are compofed of two or three pairs of ovate leaflets ter¬ 
minated by an odd one. The flowers come out in fpikes 
at the top of the ftalks, and are of a pale red, intermix¬ 
ed with a little blue. They appear in July, and are fuc- 
ceeded by jointed pods, which are waved on both fides, 
forming an obtufe angle at each joint; the feeds ripen 
in autumn. It is an annual plant, 'and grows naturally 
in the Levant. 
71. Hedyfarum humile, or dwarf hedyfarum : legumes 
jointed, rough;' wings of the corolla obfolete; fpikes 
liirfute, ftems depreffed. Root perennial. Stems half 
a foot in length, ufually with one branch and leaf only. 
Gerarde will have it to be a variety of H. pumilum, but 
he is wrong. Native of the fouth of France and Spain. 
Ray found it in Sicily, in d fmall ifland near Capo Paf- 
faro. It appears from Parkinfon, that it was culti¬ 
vated here in 1640. It flowers in July and Auguft. 
Annual. 
72. Hedyfarum fpinofiflimum, or prickly hedyfarum : 
legumes jointed, prickly, tomentofe; ftem difiufed. 
This is an annual plant; native of Spain and Portugal. 
73. Hedyfarum Virginicum : Stem fhrubby ; legumes 
jointed, fmooth, peduncled, upright. Stem upright, 
three feet high, with afcending branches. Leaflets ob¬ 
long, blunt, fmall,. many; flowers violet-coloured, in 
terminating fpikes. Native of Virginia aud Cochin- 
China. 
74. Hedyfarum fruticofum : leaflets alternate, ob¬ 
long, loft; ftipules fubulate; racemesaxillary; joints 
of the legumes netted. This is a very handfome plant, 
grateful to horfes, and extremely ufeful infixing driv¬ 
ing fand. Native of Siberia. 
75. Hedyfarum pumilum: ftem underlhrubby, wings 
fhorter than the banner, and banner fhorter than the keel, 
legumes one-feeded. A fmall Ibrub, only a hand in 
height. Leaves the length of the ftem, with oval-ob¬ 
long leaflets. Native of Spain. 
76. Hedyfarum argenteum : leaves pinnate ; legumes 
Vol. IX. No. 586. 
S A R U M. 
one-feeded, wrinkled; fpikes ovate, very hairy; ftems 
erefl, hairy. This is an elegant plant, a foot in height,' 
with a perennial root. Stems feveral, herbaceous, quite 
Ample, the thicknefs of a pigeon’s quill, ftriated-angu-' 
l.ar, erefr, very hairy ; hairs white, long, foft, fpreading 
very much. Native of the Levant and Barbary. See 
Ebenus pinnata, and No. 86. 
77. Hedyfarum onobrychis, cultivated hedyfarum, 
faint-foin, of cock’s-head : legumes one-feeded, prickly ; 
wings of the corolla equal in length to the calyx ; ftem 
elongated. Native of England, France, Flanders, many 
parts of Germany, as the Palatinate, Bohemia, Silefia ; 
in Auftria, Carniola, Swifferland, Savoy, Italy, Spain, 
Siberia ; on hilly paftures, and open downs, particularly 
in a calcareous foil; flowering in June and July. With 
us, on Gogmagog hills, Newmarket heath, about Roy- 
fton, in Norfolk, on Salilbury plain, &c. on Cotfwold 
hills, and on all our calcareous hills in general. It is 
much cultivated in feveral parts of Europe, in dry foils, 
for feeding cattle. It yields great abundance of excel¬ 
lent fodder, but is l'uppofed to be much fooner da¬ 
maged, by rain, when cut, than any other fort of plant 
ufually mown for hay. The old Englifli names were 
medicli vetchling and coch’s-head. The modern name of faint- 
join came from France, whence we originally had the feed. 
Parkinfon fays, (1640,) it is known generally to be a 
lingular food for cattle to caufe them to give ftore ot 
milk. Hartlib (1651) fays we are to blame, that we 
have negledled clover-grafs, faint-foin, lucerne. He 
complains, that we want a place where we can find thefe 
feeds. Walter Blith, in his Englifli Improver improved, 
fpeaks of it as a French grafs very little known, 
upon which he had not made a full experiment hlmfelf, 
having only fown it that year, but as having been fown 
in divers parts of England, as Cobham-park in Kent, 
See. upon chalky dry banks, By a pamphlet printed in 
1671, entitled St. Foine Improved, it appears, that di¬ 
vers places in this kingdom then already in part had re¬ 
ceived great benefit, and were likely to receive more, 
by the improvement of dry and barren ground, from 
fowing of faint-foin. Morifon (1672) relates, that it 
may be cut three times in a year, that it is a food very 
grateful to cattle, that it delights principally in dry,. 
fandy, and gravelly, foils, and that its roots will penetrate 
among rocks, thriving and covering the ground where 
there is fcarcely any earth; that it flowers in April on. 
the Appennines, in May in Provence, in July in Bra¬ 
bant and Flanders, where it is frequently wild, and where" 
many fields are fown with it. Ray (1686) informs 11s, 
that it began not long fince to be fown among us for feed¬ 
ing cattle, to the very great advantage of many ; that it 
furniflies abundawe of milk, whence it was defervediy 
called polygalon by Gefner; and that, as it delights in a 
dry chalky foil, not favourable either to grafs or corn, 
it may be cultivated to great advantage. ; From, thefe 
paffages we may infer that faint-foin was very little if 
at all cultivated i'11 1651, that it probably crept in about 
that time, or foon after, and that in twenty years from 
this time it was pretty well eftablilhed, though by no 
means generally till towards the end of the 17 th century ; 
when Houghton, in his Collection fays, that the cattle 
now (1697) live plentifully on the faint-foin growing on 
Epfom downs, which was formerly reckoned very bar¬ 
ren ground. At the beginning of the x8th century, 
Lille fpeaks of it as commonly cultivated. Mr. Mar- 
Ihall, indeed, informs us, that it is faid (1789) to have 
been cultivated on the Cotfwold hills upwards of one 
hundred and fifty years, which carries us back to 1639. 
This important fpecies, with feveral others of the ge¬ 
nus, which in former editions flood under the name of 
Onobrychis, is wholly omitted in the eighth edition 
of Miller’s Dictionary, wherein probably the author in¬ 
tended to have removed them to thearticle Hed ysarum. 
78. Hedyfarum faxatile, or rocky hedyfarum : le¬ 
gumes one-feeded, furrowed, without prickles; wings 
4 i of 
