| ish-coloured spots. 
its stems and its leaves have a greater degree of 
downiness or pubescence. Several subvarieties 
of it are observable,—differing from one another 
both in minute organic characters and in habit 
of growth; but all possess its general characters, 
and exhibit its marks of broad distinction from 
the cultivated varieties. Every subvariety of 
native red clover, so far as known, is strictly 
perennial. 
The common cultivated perennial variety of 
red clover lives through a comparatively short 
duration, is rather liable to acquire a biennial 
habit, and differs from the thoroughly biennial 
sorts principally in having somewhat more pu- 
bescence on its leaves, and in its being a few 
days later in coming into bloom.—The Duke of 
Norfolk’s perennial red clover blooms a week 
earlier, and has more fibrous roots, and darker- 
coloured stems, leaves, and flowers, than the 
common variety; and it lives through a longer 
period of duration, so as to be more truly enti- 
tled to the designation of perennial_—The Argo- 
vie perennial red clover is more dwarfish and 
spreading, and has lighter-coloured leaves and 
flowers, than the two preceding; and most of its 
leaflets are blotched, near their base, with light- 
It is extensively cultivated, 
as a perennial clover, in France; and was intro- 
duced thence from Switzerland—The German 
perennial red clover is very similar to the Argo- 
vie variety, but flowers a few days sooner, and is 
rather more productive. 
Biennial red clovers comprise very numerous 
and constantly shifting subvarieties. They are 
characterized, as a class, by a strictly biennial 
habit, and by having more fusiform roots and less 
pubescent leaves than the perennial red clovers. 
Even the kind usually denominated English red 
clover comprises somewhat numerous and contin- 
ually altering subvarieties; and receives modifi- 
cations and changes, not only from the diversi- 
fied soil and culture of different situations, but 
from frequent intermixtures and substitutions of 
foreign seed; yet, in the aggregate, it may be re- 
garded as having large seeds, a deep colour, and 
a powerfully luxuriant habit. The French red 
' clover has small, plump, purplish seeds, roundish 
a __ 
leaflets, very smooth leaves and stems, and a 
luxuriant and sappy appearance; and is well 
adapted for strong soils in warm or sheltered 
situations. The Dutch red clover has large, ill- 
filled, yellowish seeds, a somewhat light colour, 
and a rank and coarse habit of growth; but is 
well-suited to coarse clayey soils, cold, ill-drained 
land, and exposed or damp farms. The Ameri- 
can red clover has small, yellowish seeds, small 
and hard stems, and only a moderate habit of 
growth; but is more easily prolonged into a dura- 
tion beyond biennial than any of the other vari- 
eties. The Normandy, the Holstein, and the 
Cologne clovers likewise figure in our lists of bi- 
ennial red clovers; but they are neither promi- 
nent nor well-tested. 
CLOVER. 
$21 
White, creeping white, or Dutch clover, 77i- 
folium repens, is an universally known indigenous 
perennial. It grows wild in our meadows and 
pastures, and possesses such extraordinary vital- 
ity in its seeds as, under favourable circum- 
stances, to spring profusely and spontaneously 
up, in places where it could not previously have 
vegetated for very many centuries. Its roots 
are fibrous; its stems are stoloniferous, or creep 
along the ground, and strike root at the joints ; 
its leaflets are heart-shaped, and frequently have 
near their base a black or darkish-coloured blotch ; 
its flower-stems are erect and leafless; its flowers 
are arranged into globular heads, bloom from 
May till September, and are commonly white, 
but sometimes have a tinting of very light pink; 
its calyxes are unequally toothed; and its pods 
are four-seeded. It is suited to a very wide va- 
riety of soil and climate, and probably excels 
every other agricultural plant of Europe in 
the breadth and unscrupulousness of its adap- 
tations. Varieties of it, more or less productive 
and nutritive, are somewhat common, and, so far 
as they are produced by mere peculiarities of 
soil and culture, may be regarded as fugitive ; 
but one very marked variety of it has both a cu- 
rious and a permanent character, is so five-lobed 
in its leaves as to be rather a cinquefoil than a 
trefoil, occasionally excites the curiosity and 
provokes the search of the rambler in the fields, 
and has received from systematic botany the de- 
signation 7’rzfolium repens pentaphyllum. 
The hybrid or bastard species, 7rzfolvwm hybri- 
dum, grows wild in Finland, Denmark, Germany, | 
France, Portugal, and Italy, and was introduced 
to Britain in 1777. It was first discovered grow- 
ing luxuriantly in ditches at Alsike in Sweden ; 
and it has hence been sometimes called Alsike 
clover. It exhibits an appearance intermediate 
between that of Z. pratense and T. repens, and 
was in consequence thought to be an offspring | 
of their union, and designated hybrid or bastard ; | 
but it is, in all respects, a perfectly distinct spe- | 
cies. Its root is fibrous and perennial; its stems 
are branchy, and not so erect as those of red clo- 
ver ; its leaflets are ovate and a little serrated ; 
its flower-heads are globular and stalked; the 
tuft of its calyx is nearly equal; and its pods are 
tretragonal. It strikes its roots deeper, lifts its 
head higher, and has a more luxuriant foliage 
than the red clovers; and, besides being suitable 
both for the alternate husbandry and for laying 
down to pasture, it may probably flourish ona 
farm which, in reference to the red clover, has, 
in technical phrase, become “clover-sick.”” When 
made into hay in the northern parts of conti- 
nental Europe, it retains its smell and colour, 
and never becomes mouldy; and either in hay or 
in a green state, it is eagerly eaten by all kinds 
of live stock. 
The zigzag species, also called marl-grass, cow- 
grass, and mediate cow-grass, T’rifoliun, medium, 
grows wild in the dry pastures of England. It 
a 
