m
A HE red-flowered Trifolium incamaium, known in English
gardens in the time of Gerarde and Parkinson, and brought into
cultivation in our own days, in some parts of England, for early
fodder, is now to be met with occasionally by road-sides and
borders of fields; but the plant here figured is truly indio-e-
nous, growing in abundance among short grass in the Lizard
district, flowering about the end of May and soon drying up.
It is accompanied in some spots by T. strictum and T. Bocconi,
neither of the three having occurred elsewhere in Britain. It
was first observed near Landewednack, in 1838, by the Rev.
W. S. Hore and the Rev. C. A. Johns, as related by Mr.
Hore in the Phytologist, v. 2. p. 237; and Mr. Johns has since
found it along the cliffs, at intervals, from Kynance to Cadg-
with, “ a distance of six mi l e s s e e his letter in the London
Journ. of Bot. v, 6, p. 475. These gentlemen assure us that
the flowers are never red, and that the cultivation of T. incar-
natum is unknown in that part of Cornwall. To both of them
we are indebted for specimens.
Root annual, slender, with branched fibres. Stems several,
about a span long, simple or merely divided just above the
base, procumbent or ascending, stout, rigid, of few joints, not
flexuose. Leaf-stalks shorter upwards, the uppermost scarcely
longer than the stipules. Leaflets all but sessile, contiguous,
broadly obcordate, the middle one sometimes cuneate, their
upper edge crenate, but often obsoletely so ; lateral ones unequally
divided by the midrib. Stipules broad, amplexicaul,
connected at the base by a small triangular film, united to the
leaf-stalk more than half their length, scariose, with prominent
branched green or reddish ribs, edges incurved, free apex
herbaceous, waved, rounded with a minute point, entire or
obscurely crenate; those of the uppermost leaf usually membranous
throughout. Every part of the herbage densely
clothed with long silky hairs, mostly appressed upwards.
Head of numerous crowded sessile flowers, on a longish stalk,
without bractea, ovate at first, cylindrical as the flowerino-
advances, drooping when in seed. Calyx subcampanulate, not
becoming inflated, tube shorter than the teeth, its 10 contiguous
ribs concealed by long spreading hairs, mouth scarcely
contracted, teeth ascending whilst in flower, spreading widely
in fruit, subulate, the two uppermost rather shorter and less
deeply divided. Corolla buff-white, soon assuming a pale
tinge of rose, exceeding the calyx by the whole oblong,
rounded, entire limb of the standard ; standard separate, wings
and keel about equalling the calyx, concrete with the tube of
the 9 connected filaments, which are dilated below the anthers
(though less remarkably than in some species), the lowest considerably,
the lateral ones gradually less; upper stamen distinct,
its filament not dilated. Style not bent in its lower
part. Legume inclosed, filmy, slightly thickened below the
hardened style, and closely investing the one yellowish ovoid
seed.
This species has much affinity with T. stellatum.—Godron
remarks (Flore de Lorraine) that the spontaneous plant has
white or rose, the cultivated red flowers. Our friend Mr.
Woods has observed the T. incarnatum of Rome to be pale-
flowered, but of stout and upright growth, and that by the
mouth of the Loire to have just the English form. He suggests,
we think justly, that this should be regarded as the
type of the species, and the cultivated plant the variety.
Though strikingly different in habit, we find nothing to distinguish
the two as species. Perhaps the teeth of the calyx
are rather more unequal in the wild plant, and the hairs on
the stem rather less inclined to spread. Duby speaks of its
stipules as less sphacelate: in the red-flowered plant they have
usually a crimson bar between the membranous and the herbaceous
part, which is wanting in the other; but we perceive
no other difference.—W. B.