abundance between Sandwich and Pegwell in the same
county; and Mr. E. Forster, in the neighbourhood of
Thetford. It is mentioned in English Flora as growing at
Narburgh, Norfolk, and near Newmarket. It is common
in the centre and south of Europe, and all round the Mediterranean.
Whole plant, excepting the pods and the old stems, covered
with soft adpressed and whitish hairs. Stems usually
numerous and crowded, procumbent, angular, hairy, and
varying in length from two or three inches to a foot and a
half. Stipulas broadly lanceolate, semi-sagittate, connate
at the base, with the margins nearly entire. Leaves smaller
than in most species. Leaflets generally obovate or obcor-
date, toothed at the apex, the lateral ones sessile, and opposed
to each other a little below the insertion of the
terminal one. Peduncles generally shorter than the leaves.
Flowers yellow, about the size of those of M. lupulina,
from 2 to 5 or 6 on each peduncle. Pods spirally twisted,
globular, about the size of a sweet-pea, if taken without
the spines : consisting almost universally of four complete
turns with part of another: scarcely reticulate on the surface,
and bordered by a double row of divergent, subulate spines,
hooked at the extremity, the two rows separated by the
slightly prominent but thin and unfurrowed margin of the
pod. In the most common variety, the only one found in
Britain, the spines are much shorter than the diameter of
the pod. In the two other varieties they are sometimes
nearly twice that length.—G. B e n t h a m .