der the stigma. 
| Britain, about 70 have been introduced from 
VESICATORY. 
nial and an evergreen undershrub; and all the 
four are yellow-flowered, and bloom in the latter 
part of spring and early part of summer, and love 
a soil of sandy loam, and require to be propagat- 
ed from seeds. 
VESICATORY. Any substance or application 
which blisters or raises vesicles. 
VESICLE. An inflated hollow excrescence, 
in either plant or animal, similar to a blister or 
a, bladder. 
VESTIA. An ornamental, deciduous, yellow- 
flowered, greenhouse shrub, of the nightshade 
family. It was introduced to Britain from Chili, 
| above 34 years ago; it constitutes a genus of it- 
self, and is specifically called lycvoides or the 
boxthorn-like; it has a height of about 3 feet, 
and blooms in June; and it thrives best in a 
| soil of sandy peat. 
VETCH,—botanically Vicia. A large genus of 
ornamental herbaceous plants, constituting the 
type of a tribe of sarcolobous leguminose. This 
tribe comprises the pea, bean, vetch, chick-pea, 
tare, everlasting pea, bitter vetch, ochrus, and 
platystylis genera. The vetch genus has nine 
united stamens and one free stamen, and is dis- 
tinguished from all other genera most nearly 
allied to it by its style having a tuft of hair un- 
Nine species of it grow wild in 
other countries, and nearly 40 more are known. 
Three or four of the species in Britain are erect 
perennials, about 20 are climbing perennials, and 
almost all the rest are climbing annuals; nearly 
one half have pedunculated flowers, and the rest 
have subsessile flowers; two or three require 
greenhouse protection, and all the rest are hardy; 
a good many possess high agricultural value as 
forage plants, principally under the popular mis- 
nomer of tares, and both these and all the others, 
| with scarcely an exception, display a very con- 
siderable degree of floral beauty. 
The common tare or cultivated vetch, Vicia 
sativa, grows wild by the side of hedges, on the 
sides of roads, on heaps of rubbish in the vici- 
nity of quarries, and in wettish stony spots of 
cultivated fields, in many parts of Britain. But, 
in its wild state, it is much more dwarfish, and 
has a more slender habit of growth, and has 
much smoother stalks and leaves than in its cul- 
tivated varieties;-and, in the latter, it exhibits 
much diversity of character, and possesses wide 
diversity of constitutional tone, and is very sus- 
ceptible of modification from the influences of 
climate and culture. Its root is annual; its 
stems are climbing and normally about 3 feet 
high ; its leaflets are oblong, and terminate ab- 
ruptly with a small point in the middle; its sti- 
pules are small and toothed; its flowers are 
generally in pairs, and have no foot-stalks, and 
are of a red or purplish colour, and normally 
bloom in May and June; and its pods are more 
or less downy or hairy. The most distinct wild 
varieties of it are the corn vetch, V. s. segeta- 
VETCH. 
581 
fis, and the grove vetch, V.s. nemoralis; and 
the best known cultivated varieties are the 
winter tare and the summer tare; but all, as 
well as other varieties, sport and diversify and 
undergo modifications and almost reverses of 
their distinguishing characters, when grown and 
treated for a time in other circumstances than 
those to which they naturally belong. The win- 
ter tare is usually smaller in size, and has more 
smooth and cylindrical pods, and presents a 
nearer resemblance to the normal wild plant than 
the summer tare; and it is suitable to be sown 
in autumn, and offers complete resistance to 
the frosts and storms of winter; yet, if repeat- 
edly sown in spring, it rises into comparative 
luxuriance, and loses most or all of its hardiness, 
and ceases to be suitable for autumnal sowing. 
Subvarieties of it, therefore, differ somewhat 
widely from one another in hardiness and earli- 
ness; and a recently introduced subvariety, 
known in some parts of England under the name 
of the racers, is said to excel all others, not only 
in hardiness and earliness, but in bulk of pro- 
duce and in adaptation to intermixture with rye 
for the spring-feeding of sheep. The summer 
tare cannot resist severe frost or other severe 
winter weather, and requires to be sown in 
spring; yet it is much more extensively culti- 
vated than the winter tare, and is raised in 
widely different ways, and for considerably dif- 
ferent purposes, or with reference to considera- 
bly different modes of application, whether of 
its herbage or of its seeds. The subvarieties of 
it are even more diversified than those of the 
winter tare, particularly in size and luxuriance; 
and, in many places, the larger kinds are popu- 
larly designated vetches, while the smaller kinds 
are designated tares. The seeds of the winter 
tare and those of the summer tare, to say no- 
thing of the seeds of the several subvarieties of 
each, are so like each other as to be indiscrimi- 
nable by even the most practised judges,—so 
that much care and confidence are requisite in 
transactions about them between venders and 
purchasers. The seeds of another variety, how- 
ever, the white tare or the Canadian lentil or 
the Napoleon pea, V. s. alba, are very readily dis- 
tinguishable by their having a white or cream 
colour and a much milder taste. This variety 
has a more dwarfish habit, and produces a much 
greater quantity of seeds than the other varieties; 
and is cultivated chiefly for the sake of its seeds, 
and far more extensively in France and in Canada 
than in Britain. Itsseeds are used for human 
food, both green and ripe, in soups and other 
dishes, in the same manner as pease; and they 
are also ground into flour, for intermixture with 
the flour of wheat, for making bread. A speci- 
men of the herbage of the winter tare was found 
by Sinclair to be more nutritive than that of the 
summer; and, when cut at the time of flowering, 
upwards of one-sixteenth of its entire weight 
consisted of nutritive principles, between one- 
i a 
