1256 
MESSRS. J. B. LAWES, J. H. GILBERT, AND M. T. MASTERS, 
of the produce yielded by this plant, give a wholly correct idea of the real quantities 
present. Its procumbent habit renders it liable to be concealed by taller-growing plants 
and overlooked, and may also prevent it from being reached by the scythe. Hence 
it may readily exist to some extent beyond what the records show. In this manner, in 
a measure, as Sinclair long ago pointed out (‘ Hort. Gram. Woburn./ p. 223), may be 
accounted for those statements of the sudden appearance of the white clover on land 
which has been cleared or broken up, where it had not previously been noticed. 
Some instances of this have been observed at Bothamsted. Its great variability and 
power of adaptation to different circumstances also conduce to this result; but probably 
the result is due largely to the nature of the seed, which is so constructed as to lie 
uninjured in the soil for a long period of time, until the conditions are favourable for 
germination, when it would spread rapidly, by means of its offshoots, and quickly occupy 
vacant spaces. 
Trifolium pratense. 
The ordinary red clover of grass land is a tufted, very deeply-rooting perennial, 
(sometimes annual) with numerous long, thick tap-shaped roots, more or less branched, 
and with rather thick wavy fibres, provided with nodules, but almost destitute of root- 
hairs.* The stock is divided into numerous short, stout, spreading branches, with no 
true runners, but the central portion of the stock or crown ultimately dies, and the 
branches then form independent plants. Its growth begins early in spring; it flowers 
and ripens seed both in the first and second crops, though seedlings are rarely observed 
on the plots. 
The structural characteristics favourable to the growth of this plant are: its powerful 
deep-rooting habit, enabling it to get food from considerable depths, and thereby also 
preserving it from the effects of drought; its lateral roots availing themselves of the 
nutriment in the upper layers of the soil, while the fleshy substance of the main roots 
acts as a storehouse; its downy leaflets serving as a protection from frost, or excessive 
radiation, and the way in which they are folded in the young state enabling them to 
insinuate themselves between its competitors; lastly, its extensive distribution in the 
northern hemisphere of the Old World shows that it bears low temperatures, but in 
spite of these properties it is gradually declining on the experimental plots. 
The following table shows the relative degree of predominance of this plant. 
* The characters of the roots of this plant under treatment with various manures, during two seasons 
at Chiswick, are noted in the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, vol. iii,, 1870, pp. 49 and 140. 
